ALAN PEAT ACROSS THE country over the December festive season there were 103 fatal accidents involving trucks, according to statistics released to FTW by Cielie Karow, deputy director (research and development) of the road traffic management corporation. A total of 134 people were killed in this chain of accidents between December 1 and 31. Of these, the largest number of fatalities was the 36 pedestrians killed, while 33 were truck drivers. The remaining 65 deaths were of drivers of other vehicles, passengers in the vehicles involved in the accident, or cyclists/motorcyclists. While a number of the accidents suffered two or three fatalities, the worst truck accident of the festive season was on December 22 on the M10 between Middelburg and Cradock in the Eastern Cape when six people were killed. According to police evidence, the truck was overtaking a bakkie towing a caravan, when the light commercial vehicle/caravan combination began to swerve, and the bakkie ended up jammed under the truck. In this horrific accident, the truck driver was killed as were five passengers in the lcv unit.
