City counts the accident cost
THE John Ross highway continues to take a pounding as not a day goes by without at least one accident smashing the road infrastructure.
After a weekend of road carnage in and around Richards Bay, Tuesday morning rush-hour saw a serious head-on collision at the notorious East Central Arterial intersection.
A bakkie and a light passenger vehicle collided just after 7am, leaving three people injured – one entrapped.
MedCare 24 was first to arrive on scene and paramedics treated the injured while waiting for the arrival of City of uMhlathuze Fire & Rescue to extricate the entrapped passenger from the light passenger vehicle.
One patient from the bakkie was rushed by MedCare 24 to eNseleni Clinic with a serious laceration to the head, and a possible fracture to the arm.
KwaZulu Private Ambulance also attended the scene, and stabilised the extricated patient before rushing him to Ngwelezana Hospital.
On arrival at the hospital, the patient’s condition changed for the worse and he received emergency treatment.
KZN EMS was also on scene, treating the third patient.
Paramedics’ work was far from over, however, as shortly after 8am, a taxi and bakkie collided at the Main Road/Turnbull Road intersection in Empangeni.
Reports from the scene indicated that four patients sustained serious injuries.
KwaZulu Private Ambulance paramedics treated the patients before transporting them to hospital for further treatment.
Not long after, the B10 in Madlankala near eSikhaleni was the scene of yet another accident in which a taxi had reportedly lost control and overturned.
Two patients sustained minor injuries and were treated by KwaZulu Private Ambulance before being transported to hospital.
Later in the day, just after 3pm, a bus and two vehicles collided at the 5Five Ways intersection in Empangeni.
One of the vehicles was a municipal traffic police car which was reportedly driven into while manning a broken down vehicle.
There were no serious injuries but traffic was severely backed up for some time.
Continuous carnage
The high volume of road accidents – often fatal - in the region highlights a greater need for law enforcement and a clampdown of violations.
The severe shortage of City of uMhlathuze traffic officers undoubtedly plays a role in such violations going unpunished, and is an issue which municipal manager Nkosenye Zulu has prioritised.
Earlier this month, he said the 200-odd, non-critical positions - which were vacant yet funded - would be closed and the funds spent on more traffic officer and by-law inspector posts within the traffic department.
Now that the new municipal financial year has begun, this must be dealt with as a matter of urgency.
*Open your PixzAR app and scan the framed image to see footage from the
accident scenes
4 accidents in 1 day as road violations continue