North West MEC for Community Safety and Transport Management Wessels Morweng, has commended the province’s festive road safety measures, that resulted in the low recording of fatalities during the festive period. This as the province recorded 100 fatalities from 98 crashes in the 2024/25 festive period, compared 98 fatalities from 86 crashes in the 2023/24 period. Morweng was addressing the media in Mahikeng during the release of the provincial statistics on Monday.
“Despite this slight increase, the province remains second best performing in terms of least recorded fatalities. It is also worth mentioning that we did not record any major crash, meaning where four or more lives are lost in a single accident,” said Morweng.
Meanwhile, speaking later during the day on YOU FM Newshour, Morweng said Bojanala Platinum District Municipality continues to record high number of accidents. “In terms of the Districts, Bojanala has recorded, in total, 40 fatalities from 35 crashes. Ngaka Modiri Molema recorded 27 fatalities from 22 crashes. Dr Kenneth Kaunda District has recorded 23 fatalities from twenty crashes.Lastly, Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati has recorded ten fatalities from ten crashes,” explained the MEC. Despite this the slight increases, Morweng raised a concern about the growing number of pedestrians who passed away on the roads during festive season.
“Of the hundred fatalities, 38 were passengers, 29 were drivers, another 29 were pedestrians, three fell off the moving vehicles and one was a cyclist,” remarked Morweng.
He also emphasized that time also played a role in the number of crashes, hence their advice to road users to avoid travelling at night, because out of the 100 fatalities, 61 of them happened between 18:00 to 06:00 the following morning.
According to Morweng, 39 fatalities were recorded during the day from the day from 06:00 to 18:00. He said the provincial government adopted a different approach to road safety enforcement, replacing traditional roadblocks with mobile patrols to monitor moving violations.
“This strategy increased compliance with traffic regulations, especially along critical routes like the N4, where patrols operated for up to 20 hours a day,” Morweng said.
