TONGA – A 33-year-old driver appeared briefly at the local magistrate’s court for allegedly running over three pedestrians on Sunday.
Mpumalanga News learnt that one of the pedestrians died on the scene and the second person lost her life after she was admitted at Tonga hospital while the third one is in a critical condition.
According to the police, the suspect, Mr Bheki Silinda, allegedly lost control of the vehicle and ran over three pedestrians and he was granted R1 500 bail.
Meanwhile, the MEC for safety, security and community liaison, Mr Vusi Shongwe attributes crashes similar to these to human behaviour and went on and urged drivers to respect human lives by driving cautiously.
Meanwhile, two major crashes claimed seven lives in two days in Mpumalanga. In one crash that occurred in the afternoon yesterday on the N17 road near Kinross, five people were killed following a head-on collision between a taxi and a sedan.
Four were occupants in the taxi while one person was in the sedan. Twelve serious injuries from the taxi were recorded.
Read: Suspect to appear in court again
The taxi was travelling from the Bethal direction while the sedan was from Kinross.
Shongwe says that police did well by arresting the suspect and calls on the NPA to consider murder and negligent charges for the driver who knocked down the pedestrians.
He condemns reckless and negligent driving, stating that innocent people are killed by irresponsible drivers.
The MEC says this should be rejected by communities so that it never happens again.
“Reckless drivers have no place in our communities; we need people who will join hands with government to end lawlessness on our roads by reporting any bad driving behaviour to authorities,” Shongwe concluded.
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