The Eastern Cape roads, transport and safety department said on Sunday that the flow of traffic into the province was steady with no serious accidents reported.
Department spokesperson Unathi Binqose said so far accidents were nowhere near last year's number.
“The flow of traffic in the Eastern Cape is steady, especially the inbound kind of traffic; it is steady at the moment.
“At the weekend traffic was at its peak but we expect it to increase leading to the Christmas weekend.
“Our law enforcement officers are on the ground to make sure everything goes smoothly,” he said.
He said at the start of the festive season last week, roads had been a challenge as it was raining but drivers behaved.
“We are grateful to motorists and of course to our law enforcement officers for their collaboration because over the weekend and in fact the entire last week, where driving conditions were tough with wet and slippery conditions as well as mist and rain that caused poor visibility, a lot of our drivers were able to make it home safely.”
He said crashes were “not on a massive scale where there would be multiple fatalities”.
Binqose said on Friday 12 people had died including pedestrians and an infant on the provincial roads. He said many others had sustained injuries ranging from serious to minor.
On the same day on the R58 road in Maletswai (formerly Aliwal North) towards Lady Grey a vehicle overturned and the driver died on the way to hospital.
On the same day in the evening in Whittlesea, three vehicles collided and two people died. Five people were injured and taken to Frontier Provincial Hospital in Komani.
Another accident happened just before midnight on the R408 in Dutywa involving two vehicles near Mputhi location towards Ngcobo where two people died while six sustained various injuries.
In the early hours of Saturday on the R56 road in Middelburg towards Steynsberg, a driver of a light motor vehicle lost control and the vehicle overturned.
“The driver died. On the same day on the N6 road in Komani near Kimber Bridge towards James Calata (formerly Jamestown) a vehicle overturned at around 2am.
The vehicle was travelling from Gauteng to the Eastern Cape.
“The driver lost control of the vehicle and one passenger died on the scene. Two occupants sustained severe injuries after it rolled several times,” he said.
He said culpable homicide dockets had been opened for each incident.
“But we ought to be mindful that many of our vehicles tend to carry a lot of people so whether we lose one or two people we always know that it could have been worse, so we wish to applaud our motorists and our law enforcement officers and wish they could continue on that trend,” he said.
He said towns like Komani and Mthatha were reported as busy.
“That is where lot of traffic is at the moment. Those are towns where these long distance public transport providers like buses and taxis turn to converge.”
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