Safety on busy logistics corridors is back in focus after yesterday’s accident involving multiple vehicles on the N4 highway, which brought traffic to a standstill for several hours and claimed the life of a truck driver.
Details are still emerging about what happened, but according to various reports two tippers were involved in a head-on collision causing the trucks to burst into flames, killing a 40-year-old driver of one of the rigs
The fire spread to a sedan caught up in the chaos, resulting in three of its four occupants being rushed to a nearby hospital.
According to Moeti Mmusi, spokesperson for the Mpumalanga Department of Community Safety and Security, the other truck driver was also injured.
All four hospitalised people are said to be in a stable condition.
The driver of a third truck that was also involved in the accident escaped unharmed.
The noon-day collision near the Nkomazi Toll Plaza brought traffic on the Maputo Corridor to a halt for several hours as a ball of fire engulfed the sky, with black smoke pluming over the area.
Trans Africa Concessions appealed to motorists to be patient while work was under way at the scene. Traffic backing up near the scene of the accident had no way around it.
According to Kage Barnett of the Federation of East and Southern African Road Transport Associations, the N4 was cleared last night.
Yesterday’s fiery chaos on the highway once again highlights the danger of South Africa’s road traffic, recently flagged in a US report as the most perilous in the world.
According to a survey conducted by international drivers’ educator Zutobi, there are an estimated “22.2 road traffic deaths per 100 000 of the population” in South Africa.
Mmusi confirmed that all three trucks were articulated tippers, in other words coal trucks rushing bulk freight from Mpumalanga’s mines to the coal terminal at the Port of Maputo.
