Nzimande: Drivers need to stay away from social media
Nzimande, together with the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC), briefed the media on its festive season road safety campaign in Pretoria on Thursday.
A total of 767 people have died on the country's roads since December 1, a 16% increase compared to the same time last year.
The minister says drivers to stay away from their phone.
“It worries me sometimes being on Facebook as a modern minister, that when I see people going live on Facebook while some of them are driving. I wonder how safe that is, because it looks like to me it is the same problem. You can see their steering wheel, they’re playing music and possibly concentrating more on whether their ‘live’ is connecting instead of being connected on the road."
According to reports by the RTMC, distracted driving is fast overtaking reckless driving and speeding in claiming the number one spot on the causes of road crashes.
“The RTMC has told me very disturbing news that so far reckless driving and speeding are the two leading causes of road crashes. But the third one that is also threatening to even move to number one is what we call distracted driving, which in the main means using a cellphone whilst being on Whatsapp, Facebook and Instagram while you are driving at the same time,” adds Nzimande.
The RTMC says it not in possession of any data on the contribution of social media has on road crashes.
“It is a question that I posed to our accident reconstruction experts. What they indicated is that if there had to be collaboration with cellular networks and depending whether or not the law can permit, there would be able to determine what happened a few seconds prior to the accident. There would have to have access to the database of that particular driver which currently is not allowed. So we are not able to give empirical data. But it is something with the collaboration of various parties can be achieved. There seems to be movement in that direction,” RTMC chairman Zola Majavu says.