Avoid travelling at night, say traffic authorities

Road traffic authorities yesterday urged motorists to avoid travelling at night on their return home from the Easter holidays.

The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) warned that poor visibility, stray animals, slow-moving trucks and speeding vehicles were likely to pose a danger for motorists travelling at night.

"It's best to return home - especially with long-distance travel - during the day," said RTMC senior manager Ashref Ismail.

Ismail said traffic authorities were also concerned that a high number of motorists were exceeding the speed limit on national and secondary roads.

The highest volumes of traffic recorded nationally were between Thursday night and Friday midday, when thousands of holidaymakers, church worshippers and migrant workers travelled to their various destinations.

Ismail said the most popular route was on the N1 between Pretoria and Polokwane, with 2400 vehicles recorded every hour.

"We had worshippers travelling this route for prayer services, migrant workers returning home to Zimbabwe and a sprinkling of holidaymakers."

Traffic authorities recorded 2200 vehicles an hour - mostly holidaymakers - on the N3 from Johannesburg to Durban.

The third busiest corridor for the Easter period was the N4 between Pretoria and Nelspruit, onward to Mozambique, with 1700 vehicles travelling through per hour.

Ismail said it was still too early to release accident figures for the long weekend, because the RTMC had to assess statistics from over 1000 police stations throughout the country.

Two major fatal accidents occurred - in Mariannhill outside Durban, and at Cullinan, near Pretoria.

In Mariannhill, the accident claimed the lives of four people and left two critically injured after their car collided head-on with another vehicle on Friday night. Among the dead is a two-year-old child, who was flung out of the car, with her mother.

Medics used the jaws of life to remove the dead and injured from the wreckage.

In the Cullinan crash, four people were killed on Friday after the driver of the vehicle lost control.

Ismail said the driver was allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol.