MEDIA STATEMENT                                                                                                                       01.30.2024

TO: ALL MEDIA

FINAL UPDATE: SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION IN ROAD FATALITIES IN THE NORTHERN CAPE.

The department of Transport Safety and Liaison officially launched the Arrive Alive Road Safety Safer Festive Season Campaign for 2023/24 in Kimberely on Friday 08 December 2023. The campaign concluded on Monday 15 January 2024. The department Transport Safety and liaison (DTSL) mission statement commits it to do the following for the people of the Northern Cape:

• To enable a safe, secure and sustainable transport system,
• and accountable police service through, establishing and supporting community safety partnership,
• and educating, enforcing and administering road traffic legislation.

With the above mission statement, the DTSL would like to announce to the people of the Northern Cape of the reduction in road crashes and fatalities during our Festive Road safety Campaign 2023/24. In partnership with road users, DTSL managed to reduce fatal crashes by 33% and the number of fatalities on our roads by 16% (51 people died during the 2022/23 festive road safety campaign and now 43 people during the 2023/24 festive season campaign.

We would like to express our gratitude to all responsible drivers that used our roads during this period and obeyed all rules on our roads. Encouraging responsible driving was part of our road safety education campaign. During the launch the MEC said “Our broad operational plan and road safety education demands that all law enforcement officers and stakeholders be on the roads to ensure we achieve reduction in fatalities and accidents as always with a zero-tolerance approach to lawlessness.’’

DTSL had 96 Provincial Road Traffic Officers on our roads complemented by municipal traffic officers and members of the South African Police Services. The number of drivers that died on our roads is 8, the number of passengers that passed on is 20, cyclist is 2 and the number of pedestrians is 13.

A significant number of our crashes happened between Thursday nights and Saturday nights (21H00 PM – 04H00 AM). Men made up most of the fatalities over the period. The highest speed transgression recording happened on the N1 near Colesburg in the Pixley Ka Seme district where a driver was driving 191 km per hour in a 120 zone. The law enforcement officers stopped a total of 30573 vehicles over the period, 23 K78 roadblocks in the province were conducted with 14 being cross border road blocks with our sister provinces, a total of 2346 summonses were issued. A total of 15 people were arrested for excessive speeding.

Our road safety education unit reached more than 4459 road users including pedestrians over this period. To ensure that crashes and fatalities on our roads are reduced we must elevate the 365 days of roads safety campaign with specific focus on driver behaviour and driver attitude. More work will be done to root out corruption at our driver’s license testing centres where the journey to become a responsible driver commence.

The Northern Cape as a province send 50 young people to a traffic college in the Free State province to be trained as traffic officers. This is a significant milestone for us.

Allow me to express a special word of gratitude to all road traffic law enforcement officers (provincial and municipal) and members of the South African Police Service that worked extremely hard during this period to ensure that our roads are safe. The law enforcement officers sacrificed their time away from their families, their dedication to serve the people of the Northern Cape is highly appreciated.

Issued by the Department Transport Safety and Liaison.

Head of Communications: Mr Rennie Andrias: Contact-060 972 6205 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.