MEDIA RELEASE

SANRAL appeals to road users to plan their journeys this Easter weekend.

Gauteng, 5 April 2023 – Let us commit to stopping road carnage in its tracks! This is the appeal from the South African National Roads Agency SOC Limited (SANRAL) to road users travelling during the Easter weekend.

“Already we have seen some crashes reported, with the long weekend still looming. 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,” said Vusi Mona, SANRAL’s General Manager for Communications and Marketing.

Around Easter we see an increase in traffic volumes on our national roads. The N4 eastbound, will be busy, as it not only links Gauteng to Mpumalanga, but the corridor is a link to Mozambique and eSwatini.

The N3 from Gauteng to KZN is another hugely popular holiday route that will see many people head to the coast for the Easter break and school holidays.

In the Western Cape, the N1 north and the N2 up the Garden Route and into the Eastern Cape 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 road users, including cyclists and pedestrians.

Through the Freeway Management System (FMS), SANRAL, in partnership with law enforcement agencies, will be monitoring the busiest freeways across the country, to enable a speedy and most appropriate response to any incident on the network. Operators are already detecting and responding to incidents in under three minutes – a critical time when every second counts, to save a life.

Too many avoidable crashes are still taking place due to fatigue and drunken driving. To this end SANRAL’s Road Safety One campaign reminds road users to stay alert, observe road rules and take regular breaks, every two hours or 200km.

Waste management on the road is another area of concern and road users are reminded to not litter, but rather use the bins placed at rest stops along the different routes.

“It is not too late to stop road carnage. Let us take collective responsibility for our safety and that of all other road users, and ensure we all arrive safely home,” said Mona.