The Free State Emergency Medical Services (EMS) says the number of fatalities due to road crashes have increased since the beginning of this month. Eight people were killed in three separate crashes in the province on Friday.
Five of them died in a collision between two minibus taxis on the N6 stretch between Reddersburg and Bloemfontein. Eleven people were injured and taken to various hospitals in Bloemfontein.
In the second incident, one person was killed in a collision between a taxi and a car on the N6 stretch near Smithfield. The other two people died in a collision between a truck and two cars on the N3 road near Villiers.
EMS provincial spokesperson Sipho Towa explains.
“We have attended 244 accidents from December where unfortunately 51 people lost their lives in those accidents. We had a number of pedestrian accidents, 76 pedestrian accidents. We also had 78 head-on collisions.”
Towa has also urged motorists to be cautious to avoid crashes.
“What we urge the motorists is that there is a trend in most of the accidents that happened between 1am and 5 am so we, therefore, ask them if they plan their trips, they should do that in a way that they don’t drive throughout the night and take frequent rest.”
