{"id":678611,"date":"2023-04-06T08:01:15","date_gmt":"2023-04-06T06:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=678611"},"modified":"2023-04-06T08:01:15","modified_gmt":"2023-04-06T06:01:15","slug":"warning-for-road-users-in-south-africa-this-long-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/678611\/warning-for-road-users-in-south-africa-this-long-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"Warning for road users in South Africa this long weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) has urged road users to err on the side of caution while travelling this Easter weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Vusi Mona, the agency&#8217;s general manager for communications, said that the group has already seen some crashes prior to the long weekend even starting.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While this is not a good start, it should be a wake-up call to road users to do the right thing and make that one decision that can save a life,&#8221; said Mona.<\/p>\n<p>Sanral said that around Easter, there is a significant increase in traffic volumes across national roads. Traffic officials, alongside other law enforcement bodies, have subsequently ramped up in preparation for the worst.<\/p>\n<p>South Africa has an unfortunate history of racking up fatalities due to driving accidents during the holiday period. Last year April, there were 162 recorded travel-related deaths over the Easter period.<\/p>\n<p>The Western Cape, as a popular tourist destination, accounted for the highest number of road fatalities last year&#8217;s Easter period, followed by Gauteng, Mpumlanaga, KwaZulu0Natal and the Eastern Cape.<\/p>\n<p>According to statistics from the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC), more than 2,500 people have died on South African roads over the Easter period in the last decade.<\/p>\n<p>Sanral has highlighted the following roads as likely sore points for travel:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>N4 eastbound<\/strong>: It will be busy, as it not only links Gauteng to Mpumalanga, but the corridor is a link to Mozambique and Eswatini.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>N3 from Gauteng to KZN<\/strong>: is another hugely popular holiday route that will see many people head to the coast for the Easter break and school holidays.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>N1 North and the N2 up the Garden Route and into the Eastern Cape<\/strong>: These are likely to be extremely busy in both directions and road users are requested to proceed with caution, courtesy and a realisation that roads are a shared space, for all roads users, including cyclists and pedestrians.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Law enforcement agencies are ramping up their monitoring of the busy freeways across the country.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Operators are already detecting and responding to incidents in under three minutes \u2013 a critical time when every second counts to save a life,&#8221; said Sanral.<\/p>\n<p>The primary situations of fatalities are <strong>fatigue and drunken driving<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Sanral said that to best protect against accidents, motorists should stay alert, observe road rules and take regular breaks every two hours or 200kms.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Best practices<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Automobile Association (AA) said that traffic law enforcement can only do so much, and if road users don&#8217;t play their role in ensuring their own safety, they compromise the efforts of traffic law enforcement.<\/p>\n<p>Keeping your vehicle in good mechanical condition, checking tyres (including the spare) and ensuring that all windscreen wipers work are a handful of preparatory steps that can make driving safer, said the AA.<\/p>\n<p>On top of these best practices, the association provided more:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Don&#8217;t drink and drive.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Don&#8217;t text and drive.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Rest before you travel. Do not drive if you are tired. Stop every two hours or 200 kilometres to stretch and get fresh air.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Do not use electronic devices while driving. Use cell phones only when needed in an emergency.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Ensure everyone in the vehicle wears a seatbelt (front and back).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Drive to the conditions of the road. The indicated speed limit is not a target.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Do not overtake when it is unsafe to do so, and respect and obey the road markings which indicate when you may or may not pass other vehicles.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>If you are a cyclist riding a motorbike or a pedestrian, make yourself visible and ensure your protective clothing is in good condition.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Ride and walk where it is safe to do so.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Ensure you are properly protected with access to a security panic device or an app on your phone you can activate if needed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Respect traffic law enforcement; they are there to ensure your and other road users&#8217; safety.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Enjoy your drive and arrive safely at your destination.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/677055\/here-is-the-official-petrol-price-for-april-4\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Here is the official petrol price for April<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Motorists are urged to err on the side of caution this holiday period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":677687,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11119],"tags":[3328,26,429],"class_list":["post-678611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-automobile-association","tag-headline","tag-sanral"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678611"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":678635,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678611\/revisions\/678635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}