New plan to cut road deaths
2010-09-10 10:44
Traffic officials plan to stop and search one million motorists a month starting in October, in an effort to reduce road deaths, Transport Minister Sibusiso Ndebele said on Thursday.
He was confident the new national law enforcement plan, to be unveiled at a traffic chiefs summit in Boksburg, Johannesburg on Friday, would reduce the carnage on the country's roads, according to a statement issued by his spokesman Logan Maistry.
Specific dates and times had been allocated for intensified public transport law enforcement operations, targeting minibus taxis.
He was reacting after 21 people were killed in three taxi accidents in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State on Wednesday.
Nine people were killed and two others seriously injured in a head-on collision between a minibus taxi and a truck on the R716 near Heilbron in the Free State.
In KwaZulu-Natal six people were killed and eight others injured when the driver of their minibus lost control of the vehicle in Mahlabathini, outside Ulundi.
In Gauteng six people were killed when their minibus rolled on the N14 near Diepsloot in Johannesburg, apparently after one of the rear wheels came off.
