Plans for road safety on R40 as Rossouw open eyes after accident
Johan Rossouw, the motorcyclist who was severely injured in an accident on November 10, is finally awake.
MBOMBELA – Rossouw, an armed reaction officer for Divergent Ops, was under heavy sedation at Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg until Wednesday.
“He is now awake and able to talk. He is still in a lot of pain, but his condition has improved,”
the security company said on its Facebook page.
Rossouw’s accident happened when a bakkie allegedly swerved in front of him at the turn-off to the University of Mpumalanga (UMP) on the R40. This led to question regarding the safety of the R40, and especially this turn-off, in Mbombela.
According to Moeti Mmusi, Department of Safety, Security and Liaison spokesman, there have been 83 crashes from January to October on the R40 between the Tshwane University of Technology and the UMP turn-off. This led to nine fatalities and 44 people were serious injuries.
“The safety engineering section of the department conducts crash investigations on various roads in order to determine appropriate interventions,”
Moeti said.
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Such interventions include, but are not limited, the erection of speed humps, recommendations for installation of traffic lights or relevant other signs and the deployment of traffic officers during peak hours or general law enforcement visibility during certain times where necessary.
Joseph Ngala, spokesman for the City of Mbombela Local Municipality, said safety on the R40 and the aforementioned intersection is a major concern.
“But there are already designs in place to build a sophisticated roundabout at the intersection, we just need to mobilise money from our budget to be able to do so,”
Ngala said.
Both Moeti and Ngala urged all motorists to use the road responsibly to ensure that incidents similar to Rossouw’s accident do not occur.
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