Holiday death toll mounts on local roads
In the early hours of Saturday morning, two people were killed and 13 others injured when a minibus taxi overturned on the N9 between Middelburg and Graaff-reinet.
The driver of a Quantum minibus taxi, with a Cape Town registration number, lost control of the vehicle after he swerved to avoid a kudu crossing the road. A man and a woman were declared dead at the scene, and three passengers sustained serious injuries and were taken to Middelburg hospital. Ten other people were slightly injured.
At about 10:30 on the same day, a taxi traveling to Pearston from Cape Town overturned on the R75, about 7km from Graaff-reinet. A tyre burst, and the driver lost control of the vehicle. In the process, one of the passengers, a 62-year-old woman, was flung from the vehicle and died at the scene of the accident.
Two more fatal accidents occurred on Sunday, 16 December.
The first happened at 11:15 on the R61 between Beaufort West and Aberdeen, about 65km from Aberdeen.
According to the driver of the car, she swerved to avoid a collision with an oncoming vehicle that was drifting across the middle of the road.
She lost control of the vehicle and it went off the road and overturned several times. A 27-year-old female passenger was flung from the vehicle and succumbed to her injuries at the scene.
Graaff-reinet SAPS received a report at about 12:40 the same day, regarding an accident on the Damesfontein gravel road. The body of a 26-year-old woman from Graaff-reinet was found, lying outside of the vehicle: she was a passenger in the vehicle and had been thrown out when the vehicle overturned. Sadly, these are not expected to be the last fatalities on the roads in the area, and the police urge all motorists to exercise extreme caution on the roads and to be patient. Several “near misses” have also been reported in the last two weeks from burst tyres and drivers are reminded to check vehicles for roadworthiness before embarking on a
journey.