Paraplegic plunges his car through brick wall
Residents have been asking 'for years' to have speed bumps installed, and a recent accident has confirmed the necessity of this traffic calming measure.
A family in Doornpoort was abruptly woken up by the terrifying sounds of a vehicle that crashed through the outer brick wall of their property recently. A 90° bend in the road with no traffic calming measures could have contributed to the accident, which could have resulted in serious injuries or even deaths.
The driver of a Mercedes C2000 only came to a standstill after slamming into the porch of the house in Foxglove Street. Marina Cloete (33) said she and her family were woken up by the sounds of the terrible crash at around 02:00. “The bricks were scattered at least 15m away from the wall and the Mercedes slammed into our porch,” Cloete said.
She added that members of the sector policing forum (Sector 4) quickly arrived at the scene, but that the driver of the vehicle was no longer in it. “They managed to find him and he apologised for his mistake,” she said.
The driver, André Frits, was paraplegic and said he had been living in the area for many years. He stressed that what happened was truly an accident. “Why would I drive my Mercedes worth R300 000 through someone’s wall on purpose?”
The Cloete family have been living in this house for nearly two years and it is the first time that such an accident has happened, she added.
According to one of the neighbours, however, this road with its 90° bend has been a problem for years.
“We have been living here for 24 years and accidents similar to this one have been happening every year. Members of the community have asked the municipality to install speed bumps, seeing as motorists tend to drive too fast down the road, but nothing has been done,” said Annelize de Villiers.
De Villiers also said that construction workers with loaded trucks often raced down the road and made a mess near the bend. “Objects fall off the trucks and land in the road. One time, cans filled with paint spilled all over,” she said.
She said most of the accidents that happened over the years occurred when motorists were turning into Foxglove Street from Wattle Street.
Frits said he has been a paraplegic motorist for 25 years and that he was a careful driver. “Everything just happened so fast. I too think that speed bumps would have helped to prevent the accident from happening.”
The Cloete family was worried about this, seeing as the children often played in the exact area where the accident happened. “My 10-year-old son was hysteric after the accident and is too afraid to go outside near the area where he and his 5-year-old brother usually play. This road is a serious risk – if the accident happened during the day and my children were playing outside it could have been fatal,” Cloete said.
The Sinoville police spokesperson, Mirna von Benecke, confirmed that there have been two accidents in Foxglove Street in the past year. Von Benecke added that a case of malicious damage to property was opened over the weekend and that the police were investigating the matter.
At the time of going to print, the Tshwane metro was unable to confirm whether they, too, would investigate the matter in order to determine whether speed bumps should be built.
