Lockdown alcohol ban improves road safety in South Africa

The coronavirus pandemic induced lockdown has led to a ban on alcohol sales, making a notable contribution to road safety.

Eugene Herbert, managing director at MasterDrive, highlights the importance of keeping down alcohol-related harm; the cost to the country can be between 10 and 12% of GDP.

While the numbers attributed to car crashes is not clear, it is undeniable that changes to drinking behaviour impact on the country’s high road accident rates.

As uplifting as it is to see the positive effects of the alcohol ban, we cannot expect things to remain this way.

But we can use the data produced during this limited period to show the damaging effects of drinking and driving.

In concrete terms, this is what can be observed:

• Cape Town’s Groote Schuur Hospital is seeing trauma-related accident workloads reduced by two-thirds.
• Doctors in Johannesburg are seeing almost zero car crash cases involving alcohol.
• Professor Charles Parry, an alcohol and drug abuse researcher, developed a model that shows a 25% reduction in drinking-related trauma cases.

Both healthcare workers and politicians support keeping the alcohol ban in place during the battle against COVID-19.

When the pandemic is over, stricter regulation would be welcome.

Herbert wants offenders to look at the data points presented during this time and use them as a motivation to change their behaviour.