The scene resembled a disaster area that has been hit by a tornado, with crates and empty beer bottles scattered all over. That was the scene of an accident involving a beer truck and a sedan.

The nasty accident occurred at the intersection at the robots to Maniini in Thohoyandou last Monday evening. A sedan, a new Honda that was from a nearby car wash at Maniini, was hit from the side and was left a complete wreck. The shocked driver of the sedan was rushed to hospital. Fortunately he only received bruises, much to the amazement of onlookers.

The trailer of the truck jackknifed before coming to a standstill, leaving empty beer bottles scattered all over the road. The busy road had to be cordoned off for hours, while police, traffic officers and firefighters from Ramushwana Fire Station battled to clean the littered road.

The company that owns the truck also brought extra staff to assist in clearing the bottles from the road. Traffic was delayed further as the towing truck took a long time to arrive. On arrival, they waited for the brewery staff to finish offloading the crates containing empty bottles some of which were still intact.

In an interview, the driver of the sedan, Mr Emmanuel Netshishivhe (30), said he was driving from a nearby car wash at Maniini. “The robots were green and I was about to cross the main road when, out of the blue, a truck came crashing into me. All this happened in the wink of an eye,” he said.

Netshishivhe said he did not see the truck coming as he had thought all traffic from the other side would stop as the robots were red. “I can only thank God for sparing my life. Look at what the car looks like - no one will believe that I came out of this wreck with only bruises,” said Netshishivhe, who was still confused. He was treated as an out-patient as there were no personnel at the local hospital. He had to postpone his return to work in the Eastern Cape, where he is a policeman,.

Mr Dheenan Naidu, distribution manager at SAB´s Shayandima depot, said he was not concerned about the damage caused, but was worried about the safety of the occupants of the cars. “Life cannot be replaced, but material things can be bought with money. I am just happy that no one was seriously injured and there was no loss of life,” he said. He said damage caused to the truck and the empty bottles would run into tens of thousands of rands. “The loss is massive. We do not have the exact figure as of now, but we are just happy that police and traffic officers were of great help to us. They responded very fast and stayed there until the road was cleared for traffic,” he said.

Limpopo police spokesperson in Vhembe Captain Mashudu Malelo said they had opened a reckless or negligent driving docket. “We can confirm the accident, but we cannot tell what the cause of the accident was at this stage. We are very worried about the behavior of drivers on our roads who, in most cases, are the causes of road accidents,” he said. He cautioned drivers to be extra vigilant when driving.