A quiet but bloody festive season

BAME PIET
Staff Writer | Wednesday January 6, 2010 00:00

 

Senior Superintendent Dipheko Motube of the Public Relations Unit said that business operators and members of the public have shown appreciation of police operations and the cooperation is improving every year.

However, the police have expressed concern at the rate at which lives were lost in road accidents that occurred in villages and towns when holiday travellers had safely arrived at their destinations after travelling long distances. He said that since the beginning of their operations on December 18 - January 3, at least 25 people have died and a majority of them died on the eve and early hours of Christmas.

'Out of those 25 people, 13 died on the eve of Christmas and on Christmas day and most of them were pedestrians either trying to cross the road or walking on the roadside,' he said.

Motube said there is an emerging worrying trend of careless motorists hitting vehicles from behind. According to Motube these accidents are attributable to drunken driving.He said that 104 people were charged for drunken driving, 424 charged for careless driving, 3211 charged for overspeeding, and 73 for driving through the red light.

The notorious A1 Highway that connects Ramatlabama in the South, Mahalapye, and Palapye in the Central and Francistown and Ramokgwebana in the north of the country did not claim many lives this year. The police say only one person died along the road while no loss of life was reported along the Trans- Kalahari road.  

Meanwhile, the police weekly report issued yesterday shows that only one person has died since the beginning of the year as compared to five at the same time last year.

The police have recorded three murders since the beginning of the year as compared to seven last year at the same period.  In a strange incident a Tsabong woman was swindled of over P97 000 and R39 000 from people claiming to be traditional doctors from Malawi.

Another man in the same village was swindled P50 000 by men claiming to be prophets from Tanzania.

Thamaga police have arrested two men claiming to be traditional doctors from Malawi after swindling a man of P5000.