20 August 2026, Free State – Deputy Minister of Transport Mkhuleko Hlengwa says there needs to be a common commitment and approach by government – working together with the private sector and other key stakeholders – in addressing the country’s road safety problems.
Addressing a stakeholder engagement session that his department convened together with the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality, the South African National Roads Agency SOC Limited (SANRAL), Road Accident Fund (RAF), the Cross Border Road Transport Agency (C-BRTA), and other road safety social partners in Bloemfontein recently, Hlengwa said that road safety is a collective responsibility that should not only be the transport sector’s onus.
“Road safety is a public safety issue, as well as an economic and developmental issue. When we allow people to perish unnecessarily on our roads, we are not only dealing with the failure of traffic management, but we also confronting a failure of a wider system to protect human lives.”
“Our discussion therefore today must begin with a difficult but necessary question of why the Free State Province is moving in the wrong direction when it comes to road safety. We need to understand where and why road safety fatalities are taking place in the Free State, which kind of crashes are occurring in the province and on which roads, which user groups are mostly affected, as well as what factors contribute to these crashes. We must also collectively examine whether our enforcement resources are being accurately deployed where risks are prevalent and whether our interventions accurately address the problems that we face,” said Hlengwa.
Hlengwa further said that it is government’s responsibility, working in partnership with its social partners, to identify where road safety systems are failing, to determine what can be done or changed to ameliorate those failures, and then ensure that those changes are implemented.
“This approach is entirely consistent with the commitment that South Africa has made under the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021 to 2030. The United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety should not be regarded as something that should be only declared at international declarations or at meetings at the United Nations. The global targets have direct relevance to our stakeholder engagement session in the Free State because those targets translate directly into practical actions in provinces and municipalities,” he added.
In 2020, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021 to 2030 as a global initiative aimed at saving millions of lives by cutting road traffic deaths and injuries by at least 50% in 2030.
Key discussions that the session delved on include, but not limited to, the national road safety outlook in the Free State Province as a whole – including the province’s current challenges and priorities; planned interventions around road infrastructure safety improvements; road crash trends, victims support and prevention programmes; cross-border freight transport, compliance and road safety challenges; and a discussion on the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences Act (AARTO) as a catalyst for safter roads.
Stakeholders were also given an opportunity to present key measurable commitments that they intend to implement over the next 12 months.
Painting a picture of the state of the province’s road infrastructure that falls under SANRAL’s ambit, Marlize Nel-Verwey, SANRAL’s Provincial Head for the Free State Province, said that a key challenge that the agency faces is that 80% of the national road network in the Free State is more than 25 years old. This means that, while they were constructed 25 years ago, these roads were most probably designed almost 30 years ago.
“When designing a road, we use historical data and anticipate future road-user needs. We conduct scenario planning, which amongst others, include projected increases in traffic volumes. A further consideration is that 48% of SANRAL’s national road network in the Free State was transferred to the agency over the past two financial years. This means that these roads where not necessarily designed at the time to primary and strategic road standards and often require upgrading to be fit for purpose.”
“It has become clear that roads transferred to SANRAL often do not meet the level of service and standards required of national roads. SANRAL now manages this transferred 48% of the network, much of which require upgrading. Bringing these roads up to national road standards requires both funding and time,” said Nel-Verwey.
Nel-Verwey emphasised that SANRAL follows the South African Road Safety Audit Manual (SARSAM), a key document used during road design, construction and post-construction. The manual sets out various audit stages, applied according to the scope of work undertaken by a contractor on a SANRAL road.
The stages are:
- Stage 1: Feasibility / Preliminary Design
- Stage 2: Preliminary Design
- Stage 3: Detail Design, including Traffic Accommodation Design
- Stage 4: Construction, audit of Traffic Accommodation by the Contractor
- Stage 5: Pre-opening, and
- Stage 6: Road Safety Audits on Existing Roads.
SANRAL’s point of departure to ensure road safety is its routine road maintenance programme (RRM), which includes, among others, grass cutting, repair of guardrails and filling potholes.
SANRAL also has a Road Incident Management Systems (RIMS) which is the cornerstone of the agency’s road safety programmes. When a major crash occurs on a national road, RIMS protocols ensure that emergency medical services, fire and rescue, law enforcement, and road maintenance teams are all notified and coordinated through a central communication centre. Each agency knows its role, resources are deployed efficiently, and the scene is cleared and made safe as quickly as possible, minimising disruption to traffic and reducing the risk of secondary incidents.
“The primary purpose of RIMS is to ensure the coordinated, pre-planned use of human, mechanical, and electronic resources to manage road incidents and restore traffic to normal operating conditions as quickly as possible. This is achieved by bringing together multiple agencies and stakeholders to work under a unified operational policy and set of procedures,” added Nel-Verwey.
Jabu Mbalula, the Free State’s MEC for Community Safety, Roads and Transport commended SANRAL’s road design initiatives for its road safety endeavours.
“Roads need to be looked at differently when it comes to designs. It is important to understand the movement of traffic volumes on our national roads, so that when you design the roads, the design will be based on the service that the road will provide. Some roads serve to connect communities, while others are major arteries for the country’s economic development,” said MEC Mbalula.
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Issued by the South African National Roads Agency SOC Limited (SANRAL). For editorial content or additional information contact Lwando Mahlasela on 082 440 5305 or pressoffice@nra.co.za