Pretoria - With less than a month before the notoriously busy Easter long weekend, Transport Minister Sibusiso Ndebele has called for stricter measures to deal with reckless drivers.
"We want drunk drivers, reckless and negligent drivers and inconsiderate drivers to have their actions disowned by their own families and friends, for their destructive ways are deadly," said Ndebele, bemoaning the loss of lives on the country's roads.
He was speaking at a ceremony to honour Hazel Souma, an 80-year-old Cape Town motorist, who has never received a single traffic fine since she acquired her driving licence at the age of 18.
Over the past five days, more than 36 people have died in separate road crashes across the country. On Monday, 11 people were killed in a collision between a truck and a Toyota Venture on the R56 near uMzimkhulu in KwaZulu-Natal.
On Saturday evening, seven people died when a car slammed into a group of pedestrians in Tshaulu, near Thohoyandou, in Limpopo.
The drivers of two cars were allegedly speeding, when the driver of one car veered into a group of pedestrians.
"This is murder, and we call upon the National Prosecuting Authority and other relevant authorities to act decisively in this case, at least for the sake of consistency," said Ndebele.
Again on Sunday, six more people were killed in a collision near Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal. Last Thursday, 12 people were killed in a head-on collision near Queenstown in the Eastern Cape.
Ndebele said it could not be considered normal that every day, on average 40 people are killed the on the roads.
"It cannot be considered normal as well when every month, we count no less than 1 000 soul-less bodies due to road crashes, most of which could have been avoided. We want 2012 to be the year of action for safer roads. As government, we want to make it very clear that we remain steadfast in our resolve to bring down the fatality rate on our roads.
"The reduction in road deaths is not just desirable; it is an urgent non-negotiable, and has become our daily mission," he said.
