successful Arrive Alive Campaign
6 January 2008
Background
Arrive Alive Campaign is a national campaign and a joint effort from all nine
provinces. This is meant to be an annual ongoing campaign aiming at combating
the carnage on our roads. This campaign is always intensified during the
December festive and Easter holidays. The Department of Roads and Transport in
the province together with local authorities is responsible for the deployment
of traffic officers to enforce traffic laws on all, national, provincial and
local roads.
Facts
The Department of Roads and Transport draws up plans for operations that take
place during the festive period. These plans are approved by both the
administrative and political head of the department. After the approval of the
plan the traffic officers in the six districts implement the plans by manning
road blocks, engaging on roving patrols, enhance visibility and doing speed
checking during the festive period.
It should be mentioned that traffic officers were visibly deployed on our
road network and law enforcement duties were performed. The department has
established a roving task team that specialises in drunken driving and other
serious offences, which included 51 new young traffic officers and this proved
to be highly successful. Traffic safety was also responsible for mass
communication, road safety education and also had a task team to remove stray
animals off the roads.
Prosecutions
* Drunken driving arrests: 742
* Warrant of Arrests: 456
* Speeding Violations: 2 209
* Stray animals confiscated: 1 566
* No drivers licence: 1 394
* Passenger overload: 558
* Serious moving violations: 242
* Motor vehicle suspended: 291
* Defects:
915
Successes
* two arrests for position of unlicensed firearms
* one arrest for overload in the motor vehicle
* one arrest for fraudulent driver's licence
* ten arrests for reckless and negligent driving
* highest speed recording is 182 in 120 km zone
* 16 misuse of government vehicles were confiscated
* 11 buses were confiscated for being unroadworthy
* two arrests for bribery of a traffic officer
* one arrest for fraud.
Statistics (Eastern Cape vs SA)
During the period of the Arrive Alive Campaign from 1 December 2008 to 5
January 2009 the province recorded the following numbers of collisions,
fatalities and injuries.
Fatalities 2008: Eastern Cape 92; South Africa 885
Serious injuries 2008: 189
Slight injuries 2008: 209
Accidents 2008: 255
* The information obtained from the national Department of Transport is that
the number of deaths in the country is 937.
* This reveals a decrease of 598 fewer people that had died in road accidents
last month compared to December 2007, when 1 535 deaths were reported.
* 937 people had died in 733 crashes reported throughout the country.
General assessment
Significantly fewer road fatalities were experienced this year compared to
the same period a year ago.
While festive season statistics showed a decrease in fatal and less serious
accidents there was, however, a large increase in arrests.
Traffic and road safety officers were not allowed vacation leave through the
festive season and this led to the increase in visible policing.
Our task team arrested more than 644 people in the province and 47 people
were arrested on New Year's Day.
The reduced fatality rate was a huge step in the right direction for the
department to reach its 2014 target of cutting road traffic offences by 20
percent each year.
The provincial breakdown:
* 181 deaths in KwaZulu-Natal
* 167 in Limpopo
* 136 in Gauteng
* 111 in Mpumalanga
* 92 in the Eastern Cape
* 78 in the Free State
* 74 in the Western Cape
* 70 in North West province
* 28 in the Northern Cape.
The main contributing factor to the decrease in fatalities is mainly the
increase of visible policing, traffic task team and stray animal task team that
worked exceptionally well.
Road safety staff targeted the main tourist attractions and got the road
safety message across to the public which also contributed to the
successes.
Once the information from the municipalities has been received it will be
included in the final report.
In conclusion, I need to mention that the staff of the department who worked
over this period needs to be complimented as not even the rain could deter
their great efforts and I applaud them.
For more information contact:
Ncedo Kumbaca
Cell: 082 442 2388
Issued by: Department of Roads and Transport, Eastern Cape Provincial
Government
6 January 2008
