Chaos on Secunda roads this morning
Four accidents in less than 50 minutes had emergency service workers working overtime on Tuesday, 27 June.
Ask any resident why they like Secunda and one of the first things they say is the lack of traffic.
Usually most people’s morning commute does not take more than a couple of minutes and even at peak traffic times in the afternoon, traffic jams in Secunda rarely compare to those in the major cities.
This changed on Tuesday, 27 June when there were no less than four accidents on major roads in Secunda within 50 minutes.
The first accident happened just before 7am at the Trichardt/Secunda robot and took nearly half an hour to be cleaned up with traffic backed up all the while.
While emergency services were still attending to the first accident, a second accident took place at the robot leading to Charlie 5.
Though nobody was injured in these accidents, they did impede the flow of traffic and added to a sense of chaos on the road.
A report of a stationary vehicle on the PDP Kruger Road was followed shortly by a notice of an accident between Secunda and Evander close to the flickering robot.
The last accident happened just after 7.30am when a motorist drove into a wall next to Oliver Thambo Road.
The cause of this accident is still unknown, but one person was injured and one other vehicle was involved in the accident.
An emergency service worker who attended to the accidents explained what he thought might be the cause of the many accidents in town.
“It is simple, people do not concentrate.
“They are rushed to get to work or drop off their kids, they are distracted by coffee or phones or makeup and they do not focus on the road and the other drivers.”
He was relieved that there were no major injuries or fatalities on 27 June, but he expressed his concern about a general lack of responsibility when it comes to driving.
“It is the same problem that we see with accidents on the N17 highway where drivers just do not seem to care.
“Texting and driving, talking on their phones, speeding and not following traffic rules are the main causes of these accidents.”
He urged drivers to take responsibility for their actions and to drive with more care.
“In the mornings we have people walking to work or children walking and riding bikes to school, today no one was seriously injured, but tomorrow we might get called out to a child run over, and that will be a tragedy.”
The roads were finally cleared by 8.30am, more than an hour and a half after the first accident happened.
