21 November 2006
Approximately 100 000 accidents occur in the Western Cape province per
annum; on average 273 accidents per day, which result in a financial burden of
more that R2,3 billion per year. However, these monetary costs cannot be
compared to the misery of the victims and their relatives and friends in terms
of pain, grief and distress.
The reasons for these horrendous statistics are numerous and require a
dedicated, well-planned and well-managed effort to combat them. Currently, a
culture exists on the province's roads whereby poor driver attitude and a
general disregard for road traffic legislation and the well-being of other road
users contribute to a high risk environment.
To obtain statistics on these accidents the South African Police Service
(SAPS), metro, municipal and provincial traffic officials record this
information for all crashes on accident report forms. Fatal crashes are also
reported on the Arrive Alive quick response form within 12 hours.
However, problems are experienced with the allocation of the exact locations
of these accidents. There are no standardised route codes throughout South
Africa. The roads engineers are using their own set of codes and traffic law
enforcement and SAPS sometimes use names of locations that do not even appear
on any map.
To overcome this problem, research has been done to introduce the use of
regular cellphones to obtain the Global Positioning System (GPS) co-ordinates
on a crash scene, in order to determine the exact location of the crash. It is
important to have reliable data in order to identify problems and obtain an
informative evaluation of any particular treatment.
Road traffic deaths and injuries are a hidden epidemic; it remains almost
invisible to society at large. It is tragic to those involved, but not
newsworthy enough. Furthermore, the cost of accidents is staggering and
accidents cause extra congestion on our roads.
The truth is that, in the Republic of South Africa (RSA), we kill about one
road user every 40 minutes and seriously injure another six per hour at a cost
of R104 million per day!
Enquiries:
Chris Prins
Tel: (021) 483 2132
E-mail: cwprins@pgwc.gov.za
Issued by: Department of Transport, Western Cape Provincial Government
21 November 2006
Source: Western Cape Provincial Government (http://www.capegateway.gov.za)
