A sense of calm prevailed on the N3 in KwaZulu-Natal after the province’s Road Traffic Inspectorate (RTI) placed its officers on full alert with transporters holding their breath after a truck was apparently set alight in Pietermaritzburg (PMB). Thankfully by Wednesday last week FTW had confirmed that the truck parked near Hayfields Mall had caught fire in an incident unrelated to the torching of trucks last year. The vicious scenes in April and June 2018 of a trucker almost burning alive in the cabin of the pantechnicon he was driving near Mooiriver Toll Plaza, and subsequent truck blockades on either side of the highway between Harrismith and Ladysmith, nevertheless prompted KZN Road Traffic Inspectorate director Vic Chetty to place officials on full alert. In a case of rather being safe than sorry, Nick Porée of transport consultancy firm NPA Group, responded by emailing Chetty’s letter “to as many people as possible. “A lot of us down in Durban were bracing ourselves for another round of truck burning,” he said. But Gavin Kelly, acting CEO of the Road Freight Association, implored the transport industry at large to keep cool heads as “we haven’t heard anything” about so-called labour unrest in the transport sector being reignited. This was also confirmed when nothing untoward was reported by operators from the N3 Toll Concession. He also made use of the occasion to stress that last year’s “common criminality” on the N3, resulting in sections of the highway being shut down for large periods of time, had something sinister behind it and didn’t necessarily have anything to do with local drivers violently revolting against the employment of foreign nationals. He added that efforts by a task team set up by the National Bargaining Council to address presumed labour disgruntlement in the transport sector had revealed that xenophobia wasn’t behind last year’s N3 unrest. When he was contacted for an update on the truck that had caught fire in PMB, Kelly said “we’ve had accidents but no incidents.” And Estelle Sinclair, acting news editor at the Natal Witness, confirmed that the truck – which had been carrying pellets – had caught fire in an incident “completely unrelated” to last year’s looting and truck torching on the N3. However, as this edition of FTW went to print, the circular that was sent out by the RTI placing officials at the ready, remained in place. Attempts to contact Chetty for comment were unsuccessful.
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A lot of us down in Durban were bracing ourselves for another round of truck burning. – Nick Porée
