Sicelo Fayo's Street Talk

Phase out festive season!

NO matter what the purpose of the December holidays, when close to 1 000 people die on the country’s roads in a period of less than a month due to nothing else but largely avoidable vehicle accidents, one begins to wonder seriously if the time has not arrived for very tough measures to be imposed by the authorities.

One such draconian measure could be the phasing out of the “festive season” holidays by imposing a ban on time-off work at any time between December 4 and January 5, except for Christmas and New Year’s days.

After all, it is only a handful of people in this country who celebrate Christmas for its inherent meaning – the celebration of the birth of Christ – while most others view the end of one year and the dawn of another as a good reason to get drunk.

A phasing out of the festive season holidays might lead to a few complications initially, especially with regard to the education system, but even with that, a new innovative scheme could be arranged.

Nothing is cast in stone.

The wanton bloodletting on South Africa’s roads every festive season – occurring despite a government annual expenditure of some R14-billion on road safety measures, including the Alive Arrive campaign – cannot be allowed to continue any longer.

Latest statistics on deaths generally in South Africa for the four-year period of 1997 to 2000, have suggested that accidents, and specifically road accidents, might still be the most relentless killer in the country – more so than any other cause, including HIV/ AIDS.

Released by Statistics SA two weeks ago, the report revealed that of the 1,25-million deaths recorded between 1997 and 2000, the highest recorded number – about 16 per cent, or 195 927 deaths – occurred consistently during the December-January period during each of the four years.

Of these, the highest recorded number throughout the period occurred in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, followed by the Eastern Cape and Western Cape respectively, and, in all cases during this period, the highest recorded death figure was that of males.

Both statistics are fairly consistent with the road deaths pattern during the January-December period – suggesting that vehicle accidents are the single biggest contributor to recorded deaths every year during this period.

What makes the situation even more unbearable is the fact that many of these accidents occur, not due to poor road conditions, poor weather or any other such factor, but rather due to unacceptable human ill-behaviour.

According to Arrive Alive Campaign’s head of communications, Mike Mabasa, vehicle drivers show very little regard for other users, especially pedestrians.

“The bad trend is that drivers continue to knock down pedestrians, and sometimes they even knock them out of this world,” he said shortly before Christmas.

By this time 388 fatal accidents, which claimed the lives of about 502 people had occured.

Of these 28,5 per cent were as a result of pedestrian’s jay walking, 18 per cent were due to speed, 3,08 per cent due to drinking and driving, 6 per cent due to falling asleep or fatigue, while 0,26 per cent were due to using cell phones while driving.

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