STATEMENT BY MINISTER ROBIN CARLISLE

Recent suggestions of under-reporting of road deaths in the country by the National Department of Transport and the RTMC have yet again come under the spotlight. I have, for many years, warned against this form of reporting by the RTMC which is, in fact, an inaccurate representation of the deaths on our roads.

All our enforcement and road safety efforts, through Safely Home, are driven by factual analyses based on road death figures which we receive from our Forensic Pathology Services, based at the Provincial Department of Health. These statistics are sourced from the 18 mortuaries across the Province and are reliable, informative and accurate. This is a system that we have been utilising since 2009. The Western Cape has reduced its road deaths by 29% since 2008, a reduction unmatched (in such a short space of time) anywhere in the country, if not in the world.

Without this fact-based approach, we would not have been able to devise the right, focussed, and informed policy and strategy decisions,that are crucial in tackling the disgraceful carnage that we see on our roads.