While a traumatised witness to Saturday's horror taxi crash on the N2, at the top of Howieson's Poort, has added her voice to those calling for action to stop the carnage, a government official insists a spate of deaths on the killer corner are due to nothing but bad driving.
While a traumatised witness to Saturday's horror taxi crash on the N2, at the top of Howieson's Poort, has added her voice to those calling for action to stop the carnage, a government official insists a spate of deaths on the killer corner are due to nothing but bad driving.
Related story: N2 horror crash claims five
A new spate of accidents has brought back into focus the hairpin bend on the N2 from Port Elizabeth, opposite Grahamstown's Correctional Services, 4km outside the city.
On Saturday morning a taxi carrying 18 passengers, coming from Port Elizabeth, overturned on the bend when the driver lost control and five people were burnt beyond recognition.
Loretta Janse van Rensburg, whose home has a full view of this road, said she was still traumatised by the horror she had seen. "This was the second terrible accident since that road was widened,"she said. "Something needs to be done to that road before more people get killed. It is a road of death."
Patricia Nel uses the road at least twice a week, to do business in Port Elizabeth. "There have been a lot of accidents on this road over the years. A group of Indian friends was killed on this curve on their way back from PE when their car overturned and they rolled over the barriers.
"In another incident on the same bend, a couple was driving to PE with their grandchildren, when an Isuzu bakkie from the PE direction overturned, crashing into their vehicle and killing the couple and their grandchildren.
"Another person who was driving into Grahamstown from the PE direction was thrown out of his vehicle and found dead, hanging on one of the trees close to that bend."
Former Springbok player Frans Erasmus died on the road in March 1998 and later his wife died on the same stretch, in a different incident.
Nel said there should be a sign warning people to reduce speed when they were approaching the bend from either the Grahamstown or PE direction, and that there should be better lighting at night. "I think the problem is the fact that two lanes merge on that bend," Nel said.
Eastern Cape Transport Department spokesman, Tshepo Machae, however, denied there was a problem. "I don't think this road is a dangerous road at all. The accident that happened on this road over the weekend is the first one I know of, and it was because the driver fell asleep. Accidents are caused by reckless drivers on this road. If there were a problem with this curve, we would have fixed it a long time ago."
