7 die as car, ambulance crash
2003-10-28 11:01
Johannesburg - Seven people, including an ambulance driver and five patients, were killed when an ambulance collided with a car on the N12 between Britstown and Victoria West on Tuesday, said Northern Cape police.
Inspector Tony Modise said the accident happened about 07:30, 35km from Britstown.
The minibus ambulance carrying patients from Kimberley to Victoria West was involved in a head-on collision with the car that had only one occupant.
The "jaws of life" were used to remove the crushed body of the car driver.
The ambulance caught fire after the crash.
Modise said five men and a woman died at the crash and a young girl died on the way to hospital.
In a second major accident on Tuesday morning, 19 people were injured, six critically, when two minibus taxis, a bus and a car were in a collision on Grayston Drive in Sandton.
On Sunday night, 12 minibus-taxi passengers died in a collision between their vehicle and a truck on the N2 near Piet Retief in Mpumalanga.
Johannesburg metro police spokesman, Chief Superintendent Wayne Minnaar, said: "There is a sharp increase in traffic volumes because individuals and businesses are all meeting deadlines before the December shut-down.
"Added to this, the rain put the robots out of action and that causes back-ups which make people impatient."
Minnaar said: "A robot that is not working should be treated as a four-way stop."
- SAPA