Eight people, including a 2-year-old boy, have died in an accident involving four vehicles on the N12.
According to Joburg metro police spokesperson Chief Superintendent Wayne Minnaar, the driver of a Mazda 3 travelling east along the N12 lost control just before the Golden Highway off-ramp just before 2pm on Saturday.
The car smashed into a truck before colliding head-on with a taxi before hitting a Ford Bantam.
Minnaar said four of the Mazda 3's passengers, along with the taxi driver and three of his passengers, including a 2-year-old boy, died in the crash.
According to Netcare 911 spokesperson Nick Dollman, firefighters had to use the jaws of life to free several of the dead and injured from the wreckages. Paramedics meanwhile attended to 20 patients, airlifting one to Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital.
By Laura Lopez Gonzalez
Source-http://www.iol.co.za
Monday, January 14, 2008
Road accidents claim nine lives
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Icy roads result in more than 130 accidents
SAN JUAN COUNTY — Three straight days of snowy and icy roads have taken a toll on local drivers. As of Wednesday afternoon, 134 minor accidents were reported countywide.
Only 14 of those accidents had reported injuries, most of which did not even require a hospital visit via ambulance, said Daryl Branson, of the San Juan Communications Authority, which operates emergency dispatch.
"Most of these have been very minor accidents," he said.
In contrast, a clear-skied, three-day period may yield just 10 to 15 accidents, Branson said
"When it snows like this and the roads turn icy, it gets a little crazy," he said.
The icy conditions proved to be a hazard for more than just vehicles.
San Juan Regional Medical Center emergency room managers reported treating between 20 and 30 patients each day this week for injuries suffered after slipping on the ice, hospital spokesman Dennis Mathis said.
"Most of them were just talking about twisted ankles," Branson said of the 12 who needed an ambulance to get to the hospital. "There were a couple of people who hit their head, which can be serious injuries."
Since Monday, Farmington has received about 7 inches of snow, National Weather Service Meteorologist Brian Guyer said. That amount accounts for more than half of the area's yearly snowfall average of 12 inches.
But after Wednesday's afternoon snow, the area is expected to be clear through the rest of the weekend, Guyer said.
"I would expect a slow melting of the snow through the weekend, and probably by Monday, any locations that are in the sun won't have any snow on the ground anymore," Guyer said.
But the snow masked by shade will remain an ice hazard, he said.
"Those (icy) areas in the shade are just not going to warm up," Guyer said. "Those areas will stay slick if they haven't been treated."
Local officials still suggest drivers slow down and remain cautious on area roads.
source-http://www.daily-times.com
By James Monteleone The Daily Times
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Drunk driver causes three-car accident
The accident occurred shortly after 3 a.m. on Sunday and was caused by Leslie A. Zumalt, a 31-year-old Raytown woman who was driving while intoxicated westbound on U.S. 50 in the eastbound lanes, according to police. Zumalt's 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt first hit head-on a 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee driven by 21-year-old William L. Reifeiss, of Lee's Summit, at eastbound U.S. 50 and Third Street. The collision was not directly head-to-head, which caused the Cobalt to spin and hit a 2000 Chevy Impala driven by Tyler J. Hand, a 28-year-old Raytown man, whose passenger was 18-year-old Lisa M. Michaels of Kansas City.
Reifeiss and Hand also were allegedly intoxicated at the time of the crash and were arrested for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, according to police.
Michaels suffered serious, but not life-threatening, facial lacerations in the crash. Reifeiss and Hand were uninjured in the crash. Childs said Reifeiss probably escaped injury because the collision was not directly head-on.
Childs said it is unclear at this point where Zumalt first began traveling westbound in eastbound lanes, but added he thinks Zumalt began driving the wrong way on the highway before entering Lee's Summit city limits. Childs said that estimation comes from the fact that there was very little time between the first call to the police reporting a wrong-way driver and the calls reporting the head-on collision.
"Do we get a lot of calls about people driving the wrong way on the highway? Sure, we do," Childs said. "But we could go years before having something like (Sunday's accident) occur again."
Childs said many instances of wrong-way drivers on U.S. 50 are caused by honest mistakes of the drivers, who may be "confused by the outer road system."
The Journal Staff
Dont get me started on drunk drivers I would be hear all night who here has turned onto the wrong way of a oneway road
Fog Causes 70-Car Pileup in Fla 4 Dead
LAKELAND, Fla. (AP) — About 70 vehicles crashed on an interstate blanketed by fog and smoke from a brush fire early Wednesday, killing four people, authorities said.
Nearly 15 miles of Interstate 4 between Tampa and Orlando was closed by several crashes, including the pileup. Aerial footage in the early morning showed the soupy mix of fog and smoke covering the landscape for miles and giving the sky an eerie golden color.
The poor visibility forced rescuers to walk along the closed interstate checking individual vehicles for injured motorists, Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Larry Coggins said. The conditions cleared in late morning, showing mangled, charred trucks and cars pinned underneath some tractor-trailers.
Workers were still trying to rescue one man pinned beneath an overturned truck. There is no estimate on when I-4, the main east-west artery for central Florida, will reopen.
Coggins said 38 people were injured, five seriously.
Tractor-trailers overturned on the roadway, including a tanker. At least six of them burned completely.
"Everything came to a halt," Robert Ellison, who was driving east on the highway about 6 a.m., told The Tampa Tribune and WFLA-TV. "You can't see your hand in front of your face."
One of the first people involved in the accident was a sheriff's deputy, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said. The deputy told Judd that conditions on the road worsened suddenly. "'It was clear, it was a little foggy, then it was total darkness,'" Judd recounted the deputy saying.
The sheriff said the deputy was shaken up but helped move people to safety as vehicles continued to crash — the sounds of metal grinding and gnashing in the darkness.
The Florida Highway Patrol is investigating the crash and the role of smoke from the fire, which started as a controlled burn and grew out of control.
The fog was a contributing factor to the crashes, Coggins said, but he downplayed the smoke as a cause, saying deputies who were patrolling the area earlier Wednesday morning reported smoke was not an issue.
Since Tuesday, the brush fire has charred 400 acres. It is burning roughly half a mile from the highway and is 90 percent contained, Division of Forestry spokeswoman Chris Kintner said.
Forestry workers notified the highway patrol that smoke from the blaze could mix with fog, she said. Warnings signs were also placed on the interstate, but Kintner said she didn't know whether the signs were lit.
Source:The Associated Press
