'Speeding' taxi overturns in Bathurst
CANDICE BRADFIELD
A TAXI which an eyewitness believes to have been speeding through Bathurst, swerved to miss a car and overturned on Tuesday morning.
Police spokesman Lieutenant Luvuyo Mjekula, said the taxi was travelling from the direction of Grahamstown towards Port Alfred when it overturned near the Bathurst police station at about 7.43am.
"According to the driver of the taxi, a white Toyota Quantum, he lost control of the vehicle after he tried to avoid crashing into another vehicle,” said Mjekula.
| CRASH SITE: A Toyota Quantum overturned in Bathurst after it swerved to avoid another vehicle early on Tuesday morning. The driver did not sustain any injuries Picture: CANDICE BRADFIELD |
The driver did not wish to comment as he said he was still in shock.
A resident who lives on the main road gave an eyewitness account of the accident. However he did not wish to be named as his son uses one of these taxis to go to school, and he did not want him to be prejudiced.
"He [the driver] was chasing. He must have been going between 130 and 150km/h,” said the eyewitness.
He said the taxi first went on the shoulder and then veered into the oncoming traffic lane and narrowly avoided hitting another vehicle coming from Port Alfred. If the other driver had been going a bit faster they would have had a head-on collision, the eyewitness said.
He said it was not the first accident in the area, and that it was speeding vehicles that could not make the corner.
"It is time for the municipality to put speed bumps along this road,” he said.
He also suggested a traffic officer monitor the area, especially in the morning when children are being taken to school and in the afternoon when the return home.
"Fortunately there were no school children in the taxi,” he said of the latest accident.
He also suggested the local schools get together and get one big bus to transport children.
"People don't adhere to signboards he said,” referring to the speed limit which is 60km/h in that area.
