Johannesburg - Children make terrible drivers. A Benoni couple have learnt this the hard way after their 12-year-old son and his 13-year-old friend rolled an SUV on Ribbok Road in Mackenzie Park, Benoni, this week.
While the two children were miraculously left with only minor injuries - though it’s unclear if their parents gave them a few more bruises later - the family SUV was thoroughly wrecked.
ER24 spokesperson Russel Meiring said paramedics arrived just after 6pm on Tuesday, with one boy still inside the vehicle and another seated outside. “The boys were treated for their injuries and were thereafter transported to a nearby private hospital for further treatment,” said Meiring, who confirmed they were released from the facility the same day.
However, a source from the scene of the accident confirmed that the boys had apparently taken the car for a joyride after the parents of the 12-year-old had gone to visit a sick relative in hospital.
“The mother arrived on the scene and was livid. The father, when he found out the kids weren’t badly hurt, refused to come to the scene because he was so angry,” the source said.
Last month, a Pretoria 16-year-old who borrowed his parents’ VW Golf GTI without permission was arrested after crashing the vehicle while driving at 168km/* .
According to the spokesperson for the Gauteng Department of Community Safety, Ofentse Morwane, traffic police noticed the speeding cars and turned on their blue lights and siren to stop the car. “The driver tried to speed away and hit the barriers at a construction area” Morwane told TimesLive.
The 16-year-old was charged with reckless and negligent driving exceeding the general speed limit of 60km/* driving without a driver’s licence and defeating the ends of justice. He was released into his parents' custody.
While the tweens and teens survived their joyrides without serious injury, in March a 14-year-old boy was left in a critical condition after he and his friends had taken a vehicle and rolled it in Vanderbijlpark. Paramedics reported that the boy was ejected from the vehicle as it rolled over.
Netcare 911 reported that the boy was found in a critical condition at the scene. "He was placed on a ventilator and, once stabilised, was transported by ambulance to hospital for the urgent care that he required. Another male teenager, also believed to be 14 years old, sustained relatively minor injuries," it said.