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- A Stuijt
- Retired South African medical journalist, ex-Sunday Times of Johannesburg.
‘t Is the Season for Overloading…
07:49 | 
Posted by
A Stuijt |
Overloaded vehicles pothole the roads: and those dangerous holes cause thousands of traffic deaths each year…
2010-12-23 – Queenstown, East Cape, South Africa. The driver of the Mercedes-Benz Vito hearse was so drop-dead drunk that his blood alcohol content measured 32 times the legal limit. Caught near a Queenstown farm in his steamed-up hearse, the driver also carried 15 sardined-in sheep stolen from a nearby farm and five passengers...
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That's not the South African record for overloaded vehicles however: that was arguably set on 12 June 2009 in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, when 105 primary pupils and 7 adults all clambered from the same minibus taxi designed for 26 passengers. It’s usually more routine to overload minitaxis with some 17 adults, 6 children, all their luggage and a goat, as recorded by The Star on May 14 2009 near Upington.
860 traffic deaths in December 2010 – thus far…
The CSIR warns that overloading of vehicles not only is extremely dangerous for the passengers, but also causes massive damage to the road network – of which only 5% can still be described as ‘very good’: most SA roads are so poorly maintained because of widespread government-fraud, that the often very dangerous potholes (two small examples on the picture, taken in Secunda) create increasingly chaotic, dangerous traffic situations. Thus far this month a total of 860 people have already have already died in traffic accidents – and that was up to December 16 when the heavy traffic hadn’t yet begun... Accident reports show that one out of every ten of these deaths are due to potholes.
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Does Khayelitsha hold the SA record for overloaded vehicles?
This is much more normal: 23 people and one goat…
‘The sheep were slotted in like spoons’
In Queenstown, the arrested driver of the Mercedes-Benz Vito hearse was so drunk that his blood alcohol content measured 32 times the legal limit. Caught near a farm in his steamed-up hearse, he also carried 15 sardined-in, stolen sheep and five passengers. Beeld journalist Joané van der Merwe of Beeld newspaper quoted the astonished Queenstown farmer Dos Landman who had seen the scene at 11pm at his farm-gate entrance: "that hearse was so full, the sheep were slotted in like spoons'.
Landman was investigating lights and noises at the entrance of his farm at 11pm and discovered the hearse while it was being checked over by traffic officials, he told Beeld. The officials told him that they pulled over the van because of its fogged-over windows. They also solved a crime: tracing the owner of the branded sheep, Japie van Gent of Tarkastadt, who received an early Christmas present by getting his sheep back.
On the same day in Upington, a police constable from its stock-theft unit was also caught trying to get himself some free sheep in a sting operation. The uniformed cop had shown up at a farm with an arrest warrant, demanding two sheep in exchange for not arresting the farmer. The constable wanted the sheep 'for the festive season', he said.
- http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/15-skape-en-6-mense-in-dronke-se-Avbob-lykswa-20101223
- http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/cop-held-after-sheep-sting-operation-1.1005024
- http://roadsafety.co.za/2010/12/22/december-road-accidents-death-toll-at-860/
