14 learners were killed in the accident. Picture: John Mkhize / AFP After that horrific Vaal Triangle crash killed 14 children a week ago, after hearing how families had to look at body after body in the morgue in hope (or fear) of recognising something of their own child in the mangled remains, after reading that people at the scene were left sobbing and traumatised, that call centre responders were still crying, that emergency workers are in shock, I thought I had nothing to say, nothing to offer except my deepest sympathies. And yet there is something that stays in my head after my recent trip home to South Africa.
People drive like idiots; people drive like they’re bulletproof; people drive after drinking, people drive while tapping away on their phones, people drive fuelled by rage and hubris. People drive like physics just doesn’t exist for them. The problem isn’t so much unroadworthy vehicles (although there’s that too) or unlicensed drivers (though there are certainly those) but people who seem to think they’re invincible as they carve their own route in traffic — yet would never dream of driving into a wall at 60km an hour.
Or 30km an hour. Or even walking into a wall. Maybe it’s ignorance, maybe it’s ego, yet regardless of who you are, overtaking at just 60km an hour means you could hit another oncoming vehicle trundling along at 60km, and guaranteed, the impact would be devastating.
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Hit a truck, and it’s over — it’s a matter of mass and velocity. And now put your foot down, go at 120km… the force is quadrupled when the speed is doubled. But all this means nothing, so I have a suggestion.
Thirty-two years ago, when I worked as a reporter on the road accident beat, a fire chief showed me his photo albums. I saw bodies severed like butchery; I saw four people still in their seats, yet each was minus the top third of their head; I saw things I have never unseen. I’ve been terrified of overtaking ever since. I’m pretty sure every emergency response team keeps similar images.
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