Lebogang Seale and Yusuf Omar
A TAXI driver who took a chance and collided with a train did not have a driving licence – and he was the stand-in driver for the day.
Taxi owner Julius Muridili, said: “He (the driver) was someone we in the industry call a striker. When a driver needs someone to fill in, they hire a striker. He didn’t have a licence or any papers to drive this taxi, and we don’t allow this.”
Two schoolchildren were critically injured – they had spinal and head injuries – and four others were slightly hurt.
They were admitted to hospital amid the chaos at the intersection of Main Reef and Elias Motsoaledi roads just after the accident yesterday afternoon.
Traffic was backed up for several kilometres as motorists tried to take alternative routes, while frantic parents raced to the spot to find their children.
A pupil who was in the minibus, but who escaped unharmed, shivered and cried in the rain.
“When we were about to cross the train tracks, we heard the train hooting and saw it coming, and it was too late… There was nowhere to go,” she said.
According to Johannesburg Emergency Management Services spokesman Robert Mulaudzi, the taxi, carrying 14 pupils aged between 12 and 16, was travelling west along Main Reef Road when it turned right at the intersection with Elias Motsoaledi towards Soweto.
Warning lights were red and Metrorail officials were cautioning drivers to wait for the freight train, carrying concrete, to pass – but the driver was impatient.
He tried to slip through as the train approached from the west, but he was too slow.
The train smashed into the vehicle’s driver’s side tail-end.
The taxi swerved to the side of the tracks and hit barriers on its left side – the same side that was pushed in from the passenger door to the sliding door. Most of the windows were shattered.
Ironically, a large Transnet billboard at the spot reads: “Trains can kill.”
“It was the most traumatic experience,” said David Monareng, the father of 13-year-old Kamogelo.
The unhurt driver was immediately arrested and charged.
Additional reporting by Theresa Taylor and Sapa