Deputy Minister Sindisiwe Lydia Chikunga
Our host Gauteng MEC Sizakele Nkosi Malobane and all other MECs present
Acting Director General Mr Mathabatha Mokonyama
Deputy Director General Mr Chris Hlabisa
RTMC CEO Adv. Makhosini Msibi
CEO’s of other Transport Agencies
Head of Departments
Officials from the Department of Transport and Entities
Members of the media
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen,

The end of the year is upon us and we are here at Eldorado Park to launch the 2016 Festive Season Road Safety Campaign and reinforcing the message of road safety to the nation and with particular emphasis to the people of Eldorado Park.

We are here also to highlight the impact of road crashes and not road accidents to families, economy and the nation. We have adopted the use of the phrase road crashes as opposed to road accidents as road crashes are avoidable and fixable problems that are caused by bad driver behaviour, conditions of vehicles and roads.

Therefore road crashes are not accidents as they do not happen unexpectedly and unintentionally.

Today, the 3rd of December is the day in which we also observe the International Day of People with disability under the theme “Achieving 17 Goals for the Future We Want, which draws attention to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and how these goals can create a more inclusive and equitable world for persons with disabilities.” We know that road crashes also has an incremental effect on the number of people with disabilities.

Earlier today, we observed a pass out parade of new traffic officers who will augment on the current contingent of officers we will be deploying on our road. Today’s pass-out is therefore a confirmation of our government’s commitment to empower young people of our country with education, skills and knowledge they need to development themselves and contribute to the growth of our nation.

We therefore join fathers, mothers, brothers, sister, uncles and cousins who have gathered here in cheering the young people who have successfully completed their training as traffic officers. The months you have spent in training have not been easy but they have been rewarding.

It is my sincerest hope that you will use the skills you have acquired to uplift your families, contribute to the development of your communities and assist us to reduce scourge of road crashes and fatalities. From today the nation will be looking upon you to assist the government to realise the commitment it has made to reduce road fatalities by 50% by 2020. You have been provided with the necessary skills and expertise to make a difference in the lives of our community, do not disappoint them.  We fully understand that the environment we are sending you into is full of temptations and dangers.

There are sharks out there waiting to tempt you into corruption. I call upon you to resist the temptation to take bribes and to implement the law without fear, favour or prejudice. Always remember that the embarrassment of being caught in corruption will not be borne by you alone. This embarrassment will extend to you families, children and the entire government.

Programme Director, we have chosen to have our launch in Gauteng because this Province is one of the top three Provinces with high fatality rates during the festive period and registers the highest number of pedestrian fatalities.

Pedestrian fatalities in Gauteng have been recorded at 49.1%, followed by passenger fatalities at 26.3% and driver fatalities at 19.6%.

In the past two years this area from the Naturena Interchange up to Impala Road had a total of 43 crashes leading to fatalities of 30 Pedestrians, 11 Drivers and 4 Passengers.

The World Bank study on road crashes of 2013, estimate that globally some 1.3 million people die on the roads every year, and up to 50 million suffer injuries. In South Africa, the Road Traffic Management Corporation recorded 12 944 road fatalities for 2015.

More than 80% of these road crashes were caused by human factors, especially over weekends and at night when our Law Enforcement Officers are not on duty due to conditions of employment.

It is important, however, to turn our eyes on the impact of road crashes at the household and national level.  The impact on a family in losing a loved one is enormous, both in terms of emotional trauma and / or loss of income or caused disability, especially when many poor families do not have strong enough safety nets.

It is befitting and appropriate on an occasion like this, confronted with similar circumstances, to relive the words of Zoleka Mandela during the launch of the Zenani Mandela Road Safety Scholarship, Zoleka Mandela, the late Zenani's mother said:

"A crash robbed me of my daughter, a beautiful, bright 13-year-old who was full of energy and hope for the future. I will never recover from this, nor will my family.

My heart is already broken, but what makes this even worse is that so often road accidents are preventable. We must all support the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety. It is our duty to end the suffering".

The recent publication on The 2015 Cost of Road Traffic Crashes in South Africa released by RTMC in collaboration with CSIR confirms that road fatalities cost the nation approximately R143 billion, which is equivalent to 3% of the GDP.

Ladies and gentlemen, the festive period is generally characterised by high traffic volumes on different routes in South Africa and fatalities over this period have remained unacceptably high.

Apart from the national industry shutdown and school holidays, the period is also characterised by religious pilgrimages and mass events. The risk will be higher this year because of the extra holiday declared on Monday, December 27th.

Alcohol consumption is also at its highest during this period and increases the risks of drunken driving and pedestrian crashes.

As the Department of Transport together with our Road Entities, joined by other State Departments such as the South African Police Services (SAPS), Health, Social Development, Home Affairs and other related supporting services, Interfaith Religious Community, Road Safety Ambassadors and our Social Partners we will once again go out and protect and serve the South African Community during this festive season.

The message we are sending out is that: We are ready, willing and able to make a difference in the lives of our people this festive season.

Alone we might not be strong enough, but we now stand together with our social partners to declare that road deaths can be stopped. It is all in our hands.

Today, we say this call must reverberate throughout the length and breadth of our beautiful country: in our homes, in our workplaces, in our institutions of education, in hospitals, in places of worship and everywhere! Most importantly, this call to end road deaths must be heard on the country's streets, freeways, boarder posts, by-ways, sheebens and taverns.

On behalf of the government of South Africa, we have devised an engaging and multi-pronged programme involving all of society which seeks to reduce road deaths including undertaking the following:

• Whilst Section 50 of the National Road Traffic Act empowers the RTMC Shareholders Committee to deal will appeals on road traffic offences, we will continue to deal harshly with the operators, motor vehicle and drivers who do not comply with the provision of the Act, which includes inter alia the suspension of the operators, impoundment, retesting of the vehicles and the arrest of the drivers and operators.
• We will continue with the enforcement of regulations compelling passengers in motor vehicles to wear seatbelts and drivers to ensure that children under the age of three years are placed on car seats or child restraints whenever they are transported on public roads.
• A National Traffic Operation Centre situated at the RTMC offices will monitor the implementation of the national plan as submitted by the provinces, Metros and the different traffic authorities throughout the country. It is the responsibility of all these authorities to ensure that the plans are implemented as planned and proper detailed reports are achieved for auditing purposes.
• We are committed in the fight against corruption and bribery. No stone will be left unturned when we deal with corrupt officials.
• We are have officially launched the Youth for Road Safety (YOURS) as part of our road safety initiatives. The #BEINGSAFEISSCOOL trended on the social media space in appreciation of this long awaited initiative. Therefore our efforts this year will focus intensely on reaching out to the youth and reducing fatalities in this sector. Activations have been planned together with young people, celebrity DJs and musicians at Engen filling stations along the N1 and N3 to engage with young motorists during this festive period.

Ladies and Gentlemen, our days and nights will forever not be peaceful as corruption continues to rear its ugly head mostly in our driver learner testing centres as well as an unacceptably high number of un-roadworthy vehicles found on our roads causing more fatalities and crashes. Our National Traffic Anti-Corruption Units continues to make progress in addressing this unacceptable state of affairs.

A closer look at the road crashes and fatalities over the 2015/16 festive season depicted the following trends.

• Small motor vehicles accounted for 47.9% of total crashes during this season, followed by light delivery vehicles at 22.7%, minibuses or combis at 10.1% and trucks contributed 4.8%.
• The majority of people who died were passengers at 38.3%, followed by pedestrians at 34.9%. Drivers contributed 23.9% of the fatalities and cyclists 2.8%.
• The age group most affected for drivers as well as passengers and pedestrians between 25 to 39 years accounting for about 47,9% for drivers, passengers 38.5% and pedestrians 34,3% of the fatalities respectively. Children aged from 0 – 4 contributed 10.4% of pedestrian deaths.
• The gender mostly affected was males with a contribution of 74.4% to total fatalities. Females contributed 25.2% of the fatalities.

As I conclude, I would like to reiterate our warning to motorists that the re-classification of traffic offences in terms of the Criminal Procedure Act is receiving urgent priority between the relevant Departments, namely, the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, the National Prosecuting Authority, the Department of Transport and the RTMC in our endeavour to ensure that road traffic offences are taken seriously by the introduction of the minimum mandatory sentences. Enough is enough. We will spare no effort and leave no stone unturned in decisively eradicating lawlessness on our roads.

Our vitally important journey towards achieving uncompromised and dependable safety on our roads is shared and we all need to play our role by behaving and demonstrating responsible, patriotic and compassionate behaviour as citizens.

By working together across disciplines and by building coalitions we can achieve more than by working independently to ensure that our roads are safe.

To this end, the efforts of our Road Safety Ambassadors, SANTACO, Engene, Traffic Management Technologies, Big Brands, SAB, Liberty, The Muvhango cast, Media and Religious Fraternity are commendable.

Let us choose life not death. Let us stop the body count. Arive Alive

I thank you.