[imagesource: Shinecommerce @ www.kr.blog.yahoo.com]

Well, that’s rather awkward.

I’m not saying it’s easy to drive a heavily armoured South African National Defence Force (SANDF) ‘Rooikat’ tanker, but you’d expect sufficient training would have occurred to prevent an accident such as the one below.

Dashcam footage from a vehicle trailing the Rooikat on the N1 near Bloemfontein captured the moment the vehicle overtakes and then loses control, smashing into the roadside barrier.

The Citizen reports that the crash took place on Saturday morning:

Dashcam Captures SANDF Rooikat Spinning Out Of Control Before Crashing on N1, Bloemfontein pic.twitter.com/NQQThOFxCZ

— SA Trucker (@rsa_trucker) February 20, 2022

Not their best work.

In isolation, these things happen, but it’s far from the first time a SANDF vehicle has gone viral for the wrong reasons.

You may recall that petrol station crash in the Eastern Cape as well as that training exercise which went off the rails.

A little more on the Rooikat vehicle:

[It’s] a South African armoured reconnaissance vehicle equipped with a stabilised 76 mm high-velocity gun.

The tankers were predominantly used from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, and a heavier, six-wheeled Ratel-90 infantry fighting vehicle was introduced in 1975.

Prior to general elections in 1994, the army deployed the Rooikat tankers for internal patrols. By 1996, there were only 176 Rooikats in service.

A further sixty-six Rooikats have since been commissioned, growing the available fleet.

Perhaps it’s minus one from those numbers given this weekend’s crash.

[source:citizen]