{"id":322245,"date":"2026-01-16T10:03:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T02:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=322245"},"modified":"2026-01-16T10:03:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T02:03:22","slug":"south-africa-festive-season-stats-show-a-5-reduction-in-fatal-crashes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=322245","title":{"rendered":"South Africa: Festive season stats show a 5% reduction in fatal crashes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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PRETORIA, Jan 16 (NNN-SANEWS) — Preliminary data from the 2025\/26 Festive Season Road Safety Campaign indicates a five percent reduction in both fatalities and crashes when compared to the same period last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis year, a total of 1 427 fatalities were recorded from 1 172 crashes this year. The data shows that the 2025\/26 festive season recorded the lowest number of crashes in five years, and the same number of fatalities as in the 2023\/24 festive season,\u201d Minister of Transport, Barbara Creecy, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Minister, together with Deputy Minister, Mkhuleko Hlengwa, held a media briefing to release the road safety report for the 2025\/2026 festive season, which covers the period of Dec 1 until Jan 11, 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFive provinces reported reductions in fatalities with the highest percentage reduction recorded in the Eastern Cape followed by the Free State. Four provinces, namely Gauteng, Western Cape, Mpumalanga, and Northern Cape, recorded increases in fatalities, the Minister said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The statistics show a noticeable increase in the number of crashes and fatalities from Dec 15 to 28, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These two weeks contributed more than 40% to crashes and fatalities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis re-confirms that festive season crashes and fatalities increase once travellers have reached their destinations and are engaging in festivities rather than during the peak travel periods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany of the crashes happened over the weekend between 19:00 and 21:00 and between midnight and 01:00. They involved collision with pedestrians, hit and run, single vehicle overturns and head-on collisions,\u201d Creecy said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The highest number of pedestrian fatalities were reported in the City of Cape Town, City of Johannesburg, eThekwini, Nkangala District and the City of Tshwane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The types of vehicles that contributed to most of the crashes were small motor cars with 55%, followed by light delivery vehicles at 20%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Minibus vehicles and trucks were involved in only 7% and 6% of crashes respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the festive season, law enforcement officers conducted 1,632 roadblocks in which 1.8 million vehicles were stopped and checked.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 450,000 traffic fines were issued, 525 were arrested for excessive speeding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRoadblocks and vehicle inspections targeted roadworthiness, driver fitness, and licensing. A total of 173,695 drivers were tested for driving under the influence of alcohol and 8,561 of these tested positive, a 144% increase on the same period last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe highest alcohol reading was recorded in KwaZulu Natal where one motorist recorded breath alcohol content 14 times above the legal alcohol limit. The highest speedster was arrested in the Northern Cape where he was clocked at 222 kilometres an hour in a 120-kilometre per hour zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis year our officers also arrested 89 motorists for attempting to bribe traffic officers to avoid arrest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe completed 2,547 physical education and awareness programmes across the country to influence driver, pedestrian and passenger behaviour, including visits to mass transit departure points, malls and other areas of mass convergence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The department also had a massive community awareness and education campaign on radio, television and social media platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This included an increased number of roadblocks, checks for vehicle roadworthiness, driver licenses, seatbelt and child-restraint use as well as clamping down on speeding and drunken driving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, a downward trajectory in road crashes and fatalities was also observed in the annual statistics where preliminary data shows that the number of road collisions and deaths for the twelve-month period in 2025 are the lowest in five years. This period covers Jan 1 \u2013 Dec 31, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA total of 11,418 fatalities were recorded from 9,674 crashes in 2025 compared to 12,581 fatalities from 10,633 crashes in 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFurthermore the 2025 crashes decreased by 6.4% when compared to 2024 and fatalities decreased by 6.2% in the same period,\u201d the Minister said. — NNN-SA<\/strong>NEWS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PRETORIA, Jan 16 (NNN-SANEWS) — Preliminary data from the 2025\/26 Festive Season Road Safety Campaign indicates a five percent reduction in both fatalities and crashes when compared to the same period last year. \u201cThis year, a total of 1 427 fatalities were recorded from 1 172 crashes this year. The data shows that the 2025\/26 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":322246,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322245"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=322245"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":322249,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322245\/revisions\/322249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/322246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=322245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=322245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=322245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}