Every single year the Department of Transport announces road deaths are down.  Reporters attribute this to the Minister etc etc  In fact in 11 years the death toll has doubled annually in South Africa.  So is December a safer period or are the media being fed misleading figures?

This is my guess:

*year after year they change the reporting periods

*they announce and take credit for an early figure that does not include accidents not reported to them yet by various police stations and people who will still tragically die in hospital sometime after their accidents (which make the toll a bit higher by 30% on average)

*the next year they compare the real figure of the year before to the figures not including the above data and voila! – we once again have a reduction

*strangely enough the media releases from previous years invariably do not remain on the Department of Transport’s site

They have however not removed last year’s January press release yet:  http://www.transport.gov.za/communication_centre_sub.aspx?upd=1&comID=384&ssID=77

The media have reported that 1348 people died last year – but as this release shows, at the time they announced 937 deaths and that from 1 December to 5 January (a longer period than this year).  Now they announce 1050 this year and that they beat last year’s figure.  The stats are a laugh and when people are dying - and in increasing numbers - its not a laughing matter.