Western Cape Transport and Public Works on Pay Day Crimes

Joint statement by Donald Grant, MEC of Transport and Public Works, and provincial and city traffic authorities

Pay day weekends continue to be a major concern for road safety authorities. Pay Day Blues refers to Code Blue, which means a fatality emergency services communications. Since the launch of our first Pay Day Blues campaign last month, we have continued to see very high levels of road death and injury over these weekends.

In September, we announced that the worst weekend death toll of the year was 26, which occurred on the main July pay day weekend, from Friday 1 - 3 of August.

That depressing record was broken almost immediately. September’s main pay day weekend, from Friday 26th to Sunday 28th saw 31 Pay Day Blues in the Western Cape. 16 of those fatalities were vehicle occupants whose bodies were recovered outside the vehicle, a sure sign of not being buckled up.

This October Transport Month, the figures have been grim, with 83 people killed on the road so far.

Weekend figures this month have been:

Weekend 1, Friday 3rd - Sunday 5th :12

Weekend 2, Friday 10th - Sunday 12th : 7

Weekend 3, Friday 17th: - Sunday 19th : 13 (partial pay day weekend, eg Western Cape Government).

Weekend 4, Friday 24th: - Sunday 26th : 17 (partial pay day weekend, due to 25th falling on the Saturday).

This coming weekend will be the Pay Day Weekend for the majority of salaried workers in the province. We are thus issuing the following advice to road users:

Do not mix...