Teacher crams 19 kids into Clio
2012-10-15 09:40
NOT EXACTLY A SCHOOL BUS: The Renault Clio: engine delivers 55kW of power at 5 500 r/min and a 105Nm of torque at 3 500 r/min. Capacity: 19 children... wait, what?
Gallery
2012 Renault Clio, Megane RB7 editions
Back in school there were often complaints about the rickety school bus that carried kids to and fro. However 19 children in Pretoria would have appreciated such a bus.
Beeld newspaper reported that Melanie Minnie, a nursery school teacher, managed to squeeze 19 children, aged four to six, into her Renault Clio.
SCHOOL TRIP
She was stopped on the way to a shopping mall on a school trip to Spur for the youngsters. Police found six of them in the boot, at least three on the front seat and the remaining 10 on the back seat. It's not known if any of them was wearing a safety belt.
A Pretoria newspaper photographer, Nico van Heerden, was on the scene and captured images of the children squashed into the car. He said police were called by a concerned shopper at Pretoria's Jacaranda shopping mall who saw the teacher loading the children into her car.
Beeld reported that police stopped her soon after she left the shopping centre while returning to the Rietfontein nursery school which, according to Google Maps, is only about a kilometre away.
The children appeared to be fine, relatively comfortable and excited by the action, Van Heerden told Beeld. "They were excited at first, but after a while they started to get a more worried and cried."
SECOND LOAD
Minnie said: “This is the first time we went on an outing - and the last time.”
According to the paper, Minnie was stopped while in the process of ferrying the second of two car-loads of children back to her nursery from the mall. She told police she had already transported a first group of 12 in the Clio.
Police spokeswoman Charmaine Louwrens said the teacher was fined R1500 for having more people in a car than it was designed to carry.
