‘Far more detail’ required on fatal road crashes

WHILE prevention has been seen by the Department of Health as a way to curb road fatalities, a top official says the country lacks sufficient data to come up with effective solutions to the problem.

Professor Melvyn Freeman, a chief director in the national Department of Health, told The Mercury yesterday that current figures under-sold the crisis.

Speaking on the second day of the inaugural National Traffic Indaba at Durban’s ICC yesterday, Freeman made a presentation on the strain road accidents put on the department.

“We need a lot more detail; for example the cost of the medical care for traffic accidents. We really don’t know that figure.

“It would need to be broken down by ambulances, casualties, admission numbers, rehabilitation programmes. You need to look at it from the point of the crash occurring, right through to the patient getting better, and we just don’t have that kind of info.”

He said this inhibited the department’s ability to plan resources effectively. “How you should do that depends on data.”

Research showed that accidents cost South Africa more than R40 billion in lost productivity each year, with more than R10bn going towards medical treatment.

The cost of dispatching emergency response units was more than R144 million, and legal fees exceed R5bn.

“A breadwinner could die (in an accident) and that has a huge impact on the whole family. Then there’s hospital costs and family needing to travel to visit them in hospital. And if a person is off for six months it affects the economy as a whole.”

Freeman also highlighted the fact that drunk pedestrians were at fault in many accidents.

“If you look at the stats from this year, of the 1 131 pedestrian fatalities, 798 tested positive for blood-alcohol levels.”

He said increasing the drinking age could solve this problem.

“We need to go about it holistically. We cannot glorify drinking in advertising.”