'Mechanical failure was the cause of accident'
|Published
Simba Mhere and his friend Kady-Shay O’Bryan Simba Mhere and his friend Kady-Shay O’Bryan
The cause of the accident that claimed the lives of Top Billing presenter Simba Mhere and his friend Kady-Shay O’Bryan was not speed but a mechanical failure, the Randburg Magistrate’s Court heard on Monday.
Forensic road accident reconstruction expert Stanley Bezuidenhout was called by the defence in the trial of Preshalin Naidoo.
Naidoo, 24, is on trial for allegedly causing the fatal 2015 car accident and faces two charges of culpable homicide. The crash involved three cars and happened on William Nicol Drive in Fourways, Johannesburg on January 31, 2015.
During proceedings on Monday, Bezuidenhout read the report he complied on the accident between Naidoo and Mhere.
At the previous court proceedings, Bezuidenhout displayed an image that showed that there was a nut missing in Naidoo’s car which could have caused a mechanical failure in the steering wheel.
Earlier in the trial, Car Track Fleet Manager Lorenz Stoger testified that Naidoo was travelling at around 166km/h when he off-ramped at William Nicol Drive and knocked in Mhere’s vehicle.
Bezuidenhout showed the court a device similar to the one used by car tracking companies and said these devices never demonstrated or calculated speed, but gave an estimation of the location of a vehicle.
“It’s dangerous to say we have measured speed,” Bezuidenhout said.
“We can’t go to a system designed for tracking cars to calculate speed.”
Bezuidenhout said he estimated that Mhere’s car was moving at a higher speed at the time of impact than Naidoo’s car.
He said that he came to this conclusion from various calculations as well as from viewing the damage to the cars.
“The deceased’s vehicle moved forward and rolled over once but the accused vehicle rolled a number of times,” Bezuidenhout said.
Bezuidenhout argued that Naidoo’s car could have have been travelling at 61km/h while Mhere was travelling at 90km/h for them to be found where they were found.
Prosecuter Dinesh Nandkissor argued that Bezuidenhout’s opinion was not relevant.
Bezuidenhout reiterated to the court that he had experience in working with tracking devices in the South African Navy, which justified why his opinion was relevant.
He said the accident was unpredictable and neither Mhere or the third vehicle would have been able to react and swerve away to prevent the accident from occurring.
The trial was postponed to March 17.