Taxi slaughter ravages country
2010-09-09 14:43
At least 74 people have been killed and 203 injured countrywide during the past month in crashes involving minibus taxis.
The horror that attracted the most attention involved 10 schoolchildren who died when a train ploughed into their minibus in the Western Cape on August 25. The driver allegedly jumped a queue of cars waiting at a level crossing in Blackheath and tried to get around the lowered boom.
Jacob Humphries, 55, was taking 13 children to school. He was arrested on August 29 and charged with culpable homicide. He was released on R20 000 bail by the Blue Downs District Court on September 7 and his case has been postponed until December 3.
Twenty-one people were killed in accidents on Wednesday alone.
Trauma
Six died when their taxi rolled on the N14 near Diepsloot, north of Johannesburg, apparently after a rear wheel came off. The other 13 passengers were critically injured.
Johannesburg emergency management services spokesperson Percy Morokane said: "People's arms were crushed, there was massive head trauma."
Another 13 commuters were killed and two others seriously injured on the R716, near Heilbron in the Free State, on Wednesday evening, when the minibus in which they were riding collided head-on with a truck. Amazingly, neither driver was hurt.
In KwaZulu-Natal, five people were killed when a driver lost control of his minibus in Mahlabathini, near Ulundi. A sixth person died in hospital later and eight other people were injured.
