Festive season road deaths decrease
The festive season road death toll has decreased by 11%.
Transport Minister Joe Maswanganyi released the preliminary festive season report for 2017/18 on Monday.
Maswanganyi says 1527 road deaths occurred between December 1 2017 and January 9 2018.
"This represents an 11 % decline, which surpassed the 10% target. When considering the entire holiday season period from December 1st, 2017 to January 15th, 2018, there were 1676 fatalities compared to 1875 fatalities for the same period the previous year," said Maswanganyi.
The highest number of fatalities were among pedestrians.
Seven out of the nine provinces recorded a decline while the Western Cape and North West recorded an increase.
Maswanganyi told the media the number of traffic violation during the festive season also decreased.
"There was a decline in the number of people who were fined for failing to wear safety belts and the number of discontinued vehicles. 304 603 traffic violation notices were issued compared to 453263 during the 2016/17 period. While drunken driving was a major focus area during the period under review, there was a decline in the number of motorists arrested for drunk driving from 5943 in 2016/17 to 3301 in 2017/18," says Maswanganyi.