Bus strike pushed up Easter weekend road death toll, transport minister says

THE bus strike at the start of the Easter weekend contributed to a huge increase in the number of deaths on the roads, provisional statistics released yesterday by Minister of Transport Joe Maswangayi reveal.

The number of people who lost their lives between April 13 and 17 stands at 235, a 51% increase from last year’s number of 156.

“Human factor still remains a casual factor for most of the crashes during this Easter period,” Maswanganyi said.

Both Deputy Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga and the chairman of the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC), Zola Majavu, said the bus strike had an effect on the high death toll.

“I believe the bus strike contributed (to the toll) because it forced people to be in motor vehicles and motor vehicles contributed to 49% of road deaths,” Chikunga said.

Majavu said the bus strike affected plans the RTMC had to decrease the road deaths this year as on the Thursday when the strike began and the Saturday when it was resolved, people had to use their own vehicles.

“The vehicle types that made a high contribution to fatal crashes were motor cars and LDV’s (light duty vehicles) with contributions of 49% and 20% respectively. Minibus-type vehicles contributed 7.6% and buses 1.1% which indicates that most of the passengers who died were travelling in motor cars,” Maswanganyi said.

Bus drivers on the Thursday before the Easter long weekend went on strike as demands for a 12 to 15% wage increase were not met.

The strike, which ended on Saturday with a 9% wage increase, inconvenienced many people with plans to travel to various destinations by bus. They were forced to find alternative modes of transport, mostly either private vehicles or minibus taxis.

Majavu said the RTMC had aimed to decrease roads fatalities by 50% this year, but the inverse was true, with an increase of 51%.

“Even if we achieved our target we would still be disappointed because we are still counting bodies like they are apples,” Majavu said.

The minister said there were over 12 million cars on the road at Easter compared to about 11 million last year.

He said 174 253 vehicles were stopped and checked with the intention to remove unroadworthy vehicles from the roads.

The highest number of people who died were passengers at 50%, pedestrians followed at 24.5%, drivers at 19.8% and cyclists at 5.7%.

“Most fatal crashes happened in the after-hours of the day, especially between 6pm and 10pm – 34% of the daily crashes happened between these hours,” he said.

Gauteng saw a 58% increase in fatalities from 24 to 38.

Maswanganyi said the majority of buses and trucks on the roads were unroadworthy and it was unfair to threaten drivers with arrest when the owners of the buses and trucks did not service or maintain the vehicles as required by law.

RTMC Cchief executive advocate Makhosini Msibi said one of the interventions being worked on was changing driving offences in the justice system from a Schedule 2 offence to a Schedule 5 offence.

This would mean people found guilty of various traffic infringements would serve a mandatory minimum prison sentence, as opposed to being hit with a fine.