KAROO NEWS - According to statistics released by Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula last month, the mid-festive season road fatalities in the Eastern Cape for 2019 dropped to 81, compared to the 102 in 2018.

However, Graaff-Reinet and its surrounding areas were not without road accidents during this time, of which many were fatal.

Two head-on collisions in which eight people (four occupants in two vehicles) died on 12 and 13 December sent shock waves through the community. In another head-on collision near Cradock, six occupants of an SUV died when they collided with an interlink truck.

Relay EMS's Graig Hamilton shortly after the first accidents called for calm on the roads, but the fatal accidents systematically left emergency services rushing to scenes of horror.

Up to Tuesday 7 January, 24 people were declared dead after accidents, mainly in the Middelburg, Cradock, Graaff-Reinet, Pearston and Aberdeen policing districts.

One of the vehicles in which four people died in a head-on collision.

Several occupants of vehicles involved in other accidents were rushed to hospital with serious injuries. In two of these accidents, 17 people were injured in collisions with kudus. Just outside Graaff-Reinet, on the R63 to Murraysburg, two vehicles hit a kudu and thereafter crashed with each other, leaving eight people injured.

Only four days later, nine people were injured in a kudu accident on the N9, en-route to Aberdeen from Graaff-Reinet.

Among the deceased were two drivers who allegedly committed crimes. One allegedly hijacked a delivery vehicle near Pearston and lost control of the bakkie. He died on the scene. The second man allegedly stole a bakkie on a farm in the Middelburg district, where he worked. He also lost control of the vehicle and died on the scene, leaving his injured accomplice to be arrested.

One of the kudu's that died when a car hit it.

In the Aberdeen police serving area, three people died in two taxi-related accidents on the same morning, respectively on the N9 and R61. In the first accident, a taxi collided with a kudu. Another taxi stopped across the road, and as two of the second taxi's passengers walked across the road, a third taxi collided with them. 

Both the passengers died on the scene. Four hours later, an overloaded taxi with 24 occupants overturned en-route to Beaufort-West, leaving one passenger dead.

The latest road accident statistics for the Eastern Cape are not yet available.

Six people died in a head-on collision with this truck.