Soweto's road of death

INLSA

The road in Bramfischerville Soweto. Pictures: Dumisani Dube

Johannesburg - Three accidents on the same road during the same weekend.

Residents in Bramfischerville, Soweto, believe it is because of the lack of speed humps on the road that these incidents have happened.

The main road, known as Abram Fischer Road, serves as the taxi route through phases three and four.

The stretch of road from the local park to where the accidents took place covers about 3km.

Angeline Molapo recently joined many angry parents whose children have fallen victim to the road accidents.

One of the five children she looks after at the Senosatumelo orphanage was run down by a car on Saturday evening.

“I was in the house when they were playing outside, and all I heard was a loud bang,” she said.

“The car hit him right by the front gate. It was driving so fast that it flew over the pavement and hit *Lebo (not his real name).”

When Molapo went outside to see what had happened, she saw Lebo’s younger brother pulling him from the pavement.

“One minute they were playing and the next thing there was blood. I just became dizzy,” she said.

According to Molapo, the driver of the car told her he had been driving it for only three weeks and he had lost control.

Lebo sustained an injury to his head that needed stitching, and suffered a bruised face. He also lost a tooth and hurt his right arm and leg. He was taken to Leratong Hospital after the accident.

“He’s still puffy and bruised, but he is eating and talking now,” Molapo said.

Lebo’s accident is one of many that have occurred along the busy stretch of road.

Nkone Maropeng, a pupil from the local primary school, was walking home from school when a lorry hit him near the park on Friday afternoon.

The pupil was walking with a group of children when the incident happened.

Residents took to the streets at the weekend and laid rocks on the road in protest. They said there had been many incidents, some fatal, over the years because of the lack of speed humps.

Residents said another woman was run over by a car a little over 10m from where Lebo’s incident occurred on Monday when the rocks were being removed.

Cecilia Motsamai’s son was not so fortunate. He lost his life a few metres away from Lebo’s incident.

Motsamai lives on the opposite side of the road.

On February 11, 2011, her son Thato was getting off his transport from school when he was hit by a car while crossing the road.

“The car overtook the stationary transport carrying the children, and as Thato crossed the road, it hit him. The impact made my son’s body land on the pavement. He died a week later from the head injury he sustained.”

Motsamai said her six-year-old son was a clever boy and a people’s person.

“I get even angrier when I see these other incidents because I don’t want people to lose their children like I did,” she said.

Motsamai said that when some cars drive down the road, it was like they were at the Kyalami racetrack.

“We’ve been asking for years for road humps, but still nothing, even after the accidents,” she said.

Her next-door neighbour Violet Nonjiko’s granddaughter, Sandiso Sgeleni, 8, spent three months in hospital after she was hit by a car on the same road just metres away from Lebo and Thato’s incidents.

“Her whole left side was injured and skin had to be removed from her stomach to fill the arm area where her tissue had come out,” Nonjiko said.

The incident took place in 2008 when Sandiso was four years old.

Nonjiko said Sandiso still has a limp when she walks.

Residents said they would continue with the protests until something was done.

mpiletso.motumi@inl.co.za

The Star