923 killed last June - RTMC warns youth ahead of long weekend
The Road Traffic Management Corporation urges young drivers to reduce speed, avoid drinking and driving, and maintain safe distances this Youth Month
The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) has urged young people to exercise extreme caution on South Africa's roads as the Youth Day long weekend and school winter holidays approach.
In a road safety awareness drive launched this June, the RTMC is calling on youth to take active steps to protect their lives and those of others during a period historically marked by high road fatality rates.
Over the past four years, road fatalities during June have averaged 1,044 deaths annually.
Although fatalities decreased to 833 in June 2023, this figure climbed again to 923 in 2024.
"Worryingly, trends show that young people aged 20 to 39 make up more than half of daily road crash fatalities in South Africa", the RTMC said in a statement.
RTMC spokesperson, Simon Zwane, warns that "the most common type of crash relates to accidents with pedestrians, hit and run type of accidents and single vehicle overturn and head on collisions", trends they are working to change drastically.
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Courts drag their feet, sidelining homophobic violence and atrocities for more sensational — often political — cases. In addition to this, only 28.6% of Home Affairs branches had marriage officers who were willing to marry same sex couples. This is deplorable and shows that our government institutions don't take constitutional rights seriously. Politicians pay lip service to inclusion while staying silent when queer people are brutally murdered. Pride cannot be reduced to rainbow logos and corporate hashtags; it must be a genuine call to action. The era of empty promises is long gone. Legal protections mean nothing without moral conviction. Equality can't be legislated into existence alone. Our nation must reckon with the values it claims to uphold and confront the prejudices it still tolerates in its homes, churches, schools, streets, and beyond. What is required now is transformation at the level of mindset, culture, and conscience. 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The youth are not only defending human rights in our society, but expanding the meaning of freedom for future generations. They are holding institutions accountable and demanding that the values enshrined in the Constitution become lived realities for all, including queer communities. In South Africa, everyone in our society knows the fight for freedom, human rights and true liberation — past and present. True Pride means more than survival. If Pride is to mean anything in South Africa, it must move all of us, from law to culture, from silence to solidarity. This means dignity, safety, and freedom for all queer people. We owe it to Hendricks, Thomas, and to the innumerable lives taken by rampant, inhumane queerphobia, to demand nothing less than true justice. It is evident that: 'To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.' Until South Africa confronts the hatred that lives beyond its laws, Pride will remain a protest, not a celebration. * Tswelopele Makoe is a gender and social justice activist and editor at Global South Media Network. She is a researcher, columnist, and an Andrew W Mellon scholar at the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice, UWC. The views expressed are her own. ** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, IOL, or Independent Media. Get the real story on the go: Follow the Sunday Independent on WhatsApp.
