Victims of horror crash named
Yesterday, police said the driver was Tyron November, 45, and the passengers were Yoliswa Simani, Linda Thembani, and Siundokuhle Badi, all 16, as well as 15-year-olds Theophyllus Tshunungwa and Ziyanda Futha. Meanwhile, several attempts to get the latest road death figures from the Department of Transport and Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) yesterday failed. RTMC spokesman Simon Zwane said figures would only be released at the end of the festive season, once all statistics had been validated. But as of December 28 – the last official figure provided – 171 people had been killed in the Eastern Cape since the beginning of December, with 11 of the deaths happening over the Christmas weekend. Provincial transport spokesman Ncedo Kumbaca referred questions to the RTMC or national Department of Transport.
The move not to release further figures until the end of the festive season has prompted the Justice Project South Africa to question how seriously the government is taking road safety. Project spokesman Howard Dembovsky said it was strange that the government had stopped releasing figures at a time when the death toll showed signs of a dramatic increase compared to previous years. “It is arguable that while an ongoing tally of road deaths and injuries may not affect the behaviour of all road users, it is undeniable that it does have the effect of making some people more cautious than they would ordinarily be and any effective road safety campaign must employ every tool at its disposal,” Dembovsky said. “It would appear that neither the RTMC, nor the minister and Department of Transport take road safety seriously since they are doing everything other than adopting internationally proven best practices. “This is very sad for South Africa and for those have been, and will be, injured or killed.”