210 pupil transport vehicles taken off the road

2011-09-22 14:00

Johannesburg - A total of 210 unroadworthy pupil transport vehicles have been taken off the road since the start of the month, the national transport department said on Thursday.

The cars, buses and taxis were pulled off in a blitz by traffic officials following the deaths of at least 76 people in public transport crashes last month, the department said in a statement.

About 128 000 public transport vehicles were checked between August 31 and September 18.

Of these, 210 buses, 395 taxis and 159 trucks were pulled off the road for being unroadworthy. The vehicles could only operate again after passing a roadworthy test.

More than 430 public transport drivers were arrested for various traffic offences. The majority of these offences were overloading, followed by drunken driving.

According to the statement, Transport Minister Sbu Ndebele said: "As part of the National Rolling Enforcement Plan, we will continue to deploy traffic officials on strategic and critical routes to increase visibility and intensify enforcement on driver and vehicle fitness."

Ndebele asked the public to report road offences on the national traffic hotline [phone]) as "law enforcement officers cannot be everywhere at any given time".

- SAPA