FREE STATE – From losing six of her family members in a road accident to being robbed at gunpoint while changing a flat tyre, Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga says road safety is very personal to her.

Chikunga presented the provisional festive season road statistics on Friday at the N3 Wilge Toll Plaza in the Free State.

While there has been a decrease of 32 road fatalities this year compared to last year, the minister said 719 people dying within three weeks was still too high.

READ: 719 road fatalities across SA since 1 December, reveals Transport Dept

On 16 July 2022, along the N11 highway in Ladysmith, a suspected drunk driver drove his bakkie into the family of six, instantly killing all of them.

A couple of hours after the accident, Chikunga got the call that her eldest son, daughter-in-law, and four grandchildren were all dead.

[WATCH] Sindisiwe Chikunga, Transport Minister, shared a personal tragic story with EWN on how she lost her son, daughter-in-law and four grandchildren last year in a road accident.

She said they were killed by a drunk driver. TCG pic.twitter.com/xNLuPllcLT

‘ EWN Reporter (@ewnreporter) December 22, 2023

Chikunga said over the past three weeks, 719 sons, daughters, partners and siblings did not come back home.

“And when they get the news, they are no longer going to arrive. You can imagine the shock, the pain, that happens to those families. That is why for us, it is not just about being ministers, but it is also about us being citizens of this country, saying we can do better than what we are doing.”

In November, Chikunga and her bodyguards were robbed of their personal belongings by armed men while changing a flat tyre on the side of the road.

Chikunga said police investigations into the robbery were still ongoing.

AFTER-HOURS ROADBLOCKS

The transport department will be intensifying its after-hours roadblocks as statistics show many fatal accidents usually take place during the night.

The provisional festive season road statistics, which covered the period from the first of December to Friday, revealed a pattern of fatal crashes usually taking place after dark and before dawn, between 7PM and 2AM.

“This has necessitated that we adjust our law enforcement deployment plans to pay more attention in residential areas and after-hour operations leading to early morning. Law enforcement operations will be intelligence-led, and directed at new emerging hotspots to deal with, among others, drunken driving, as well as reckless and negligent driving,” Chikunga said.

PEDESTRIAN DEATHS

The department also urged motorists to extra vigilant this festive season, with pedestrians revealed as the biggest victims of road accidents.

Chikunga said out of the 719 people who died from road-related fatalities since the first of this month, 312 were pedestrians, which accounted for 43.4% of the total road fatalities over the past three weeks.

This was followed by passengers, at 29.5%, drivers at 26.3%, and cyclists at 0.9%.

The minister said drivers needed to consider the lives of others each time they were behind the wheel.

“It is therefore important that we avoid reckless and selfish conduct on the road, because our actions may very likely take away innocent lives.”