Besides two pedestrians who were run over and killed by vehicles in Karibib and Swakopmund during December, no fatal car crashes were recorded on the roads en-route to and from the coast since the beginning of December.

Last year the same time, about six people were killed on these roads.

According to Aubrey Oosthuizen of the West Coast Safety Initiative the post-holiday exodus from the coast started on Wednesday with about 312 vehicles per hour passing the main roadblock at Swakopmund. By Sunday, most of the holiday-goers would have left for their homes.

"December-traffic is always a little different to other holidays and long weekends. People know that there will be a lot of cars on the road and so the return journeys home to elsewhere are evenly distributed as people choose different days to drive," said Oosthuizen.

He said that although there was more traffic this year than previous years, the low accident rate on coastal routes could be attributed to a more acute road-safety consciousness by motorists, as well as more visibility of law-enforcement elements.

"The public and authorities also cooperated more in identifying those who were inclined to break the rules and so the problems were dealt with early before any serious consequences," according to him.

The holiday season is not over yet and so Oosthuizen still made an urgent call on motorists to drive responsibly and safely to their destinations. The fact that there were no fatal vehicle crashes so far does not mean that such accidents would never happen again.