[imagesource: Facebook / Emer-G-Med (Pty) Ltd]

Drag racing, or street racing, is just another example of why South African roads are so unsafe.

On Saturday night along Durban’s Umgeni Road, illegal racing was taking place outside a number of BP, Shell, and Engen petrol stations.

Invariably, something goes wrong. In this instance, it was a car doing doughnuts at the intersection of Umgeni Road and Intersite Avenue that was struck by a car travelling at high speeds.

Footage shows the car then ploughing into a group of spectators, who had been seeing filming and cheering on the racers.

The area is notorious for drag racing so the fact that police took so long to respond is worrying.

In this video, you can see the car completing a few doughnuts before being struck and spinning into the crowd:

This video features multiple angles of the accident, including the above footage:

In response to media queries, Metro police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Parboo Sewpersad told IOL they first received a call regarding the illegal racing shortly before midnight:

…while responding, they got a second call that there had been a crash at the same location.

Sewpersad said in these kinds of operations, you would need specialised police and a lot of police officers, and they do not have the manpower to police everything in eThekwini.

“The metro police need to be more well equipped to deal with all the demands in the city, such as drag racing. That area has been prone to drag racing. A lot of areas are prone,” Sewpersad said.

Someone should have told them there were doughnuts on the scene. Perhaps they would have responded quicker.

Emer-G-Med and Netcare911 paramedics responded. The former’s Facebook post states that “two people were left injured, one critically so. They were treated and stabilized on the scene before being taken to a nearby hospital for further care.”

A case of reckless and negligent driving has been opened at the Sydenham police station but Sewpersad says no arrests have yet been made.

[source:iol]