Mhere crash accused was travelling at 166km/h

Preshalin Naidoo was travelling at 166 kilometres per hour when the accident that killed Top Billing presenter Simba Mhere and his passenger Kady-Shay O’Bryan occurred.

Johannesburg - Evidence in the Randburg Magstrate’s Court on Tuesday, showed that motorist Preshalin Naidoo who was involved in a car accident where Top Billing presenter Simba Mhere and his passenger Kady-Shay O’Bryan were killed, was travelling at 166 kilometres when the accident occurred.

“At 05.36am Naidoo off-ramped at William Nicol Drive and was travelling on the far right hand lane at 166km heading towards Monte Casino,” Car Track Fleet Manager Lorenz Stoger told the court.

Naidoo‚ 24, who faces two charges of culpable homicide relating to the car crash in which Mhere and O’Bryan died, which involved three cars, occurred along William Nicol Drive in Fourways‚ Johannesburg, on January 31‚ 2015.

Prosecutor Dinesh Nandkissor began questioning Stoger who earlier told the court that he had been a witness for court related issues before and had worked with tracking devices for a number of years.

Nandkissor asked Stoger why there was no indication of breaking on the data sheet at that moment.

“Breaks were not applied harshly,” Stoger responded.

Stoger said that the speed of Naidoo’s vehicle was recorded at 166km/h and suddenly went to 0km/h because of the impact with the other vehicles.

Earlier, Stoger described the device that was installed into Naidoo’s vehicle in order for this data to be retrieved.

“The product fitted in this vehicle was fleet management allowing customers to keep an eye of the whereabouts of their vehicle,” Stoger said.

Stoger said that the fleet management device that was in the vehicle could measure driver behaviour as well as the location of the vehicle.

“They allow us to have real time data from our vehicles,” he said.

Stoger then explained that once the vehicle was turned on, they would be able to identify the exact location and position of the vehicle and alerts like over speed, harsh breaking and harsh turning.

“The client can receive this information know their own,” Stoger said.

He then displayed an excel sheet to the court that showed the data that was retrieved from Naidoo’s vehicle which included the start and end date of the users request and had information of the series of events of his trip leading up to the accident.

“Trip one started at 11:14am 30 January 2015, the system relayed the closest Street and address, next column relayed the speed of the vehicle. GPS allows us to locate the exact location of the vehicle,” Stoger read from the excel sheet.

Stoger went on to the Google Earth application using a projector, which showed the exact locations of Naidoo’s vehicle to the court.

“[There is a] 99.9 percent chance you will find that the customer that says he is at the Shoprite, is in fact there,” he said.

The system showed that there were times during the time frame that was requested from Car Track by the State, Naidoo was driving at an excessive speed which was over 130km/h which is over the National speed limit of 120km/h.

“The vehicle was on the N1 western bypass at 134km/h on 30 January at 5:48pm, at 8:15pm he was travelling at 150km/h,” Stoger said.

The Car Track data sheet later showed that Naidoo was driving at 134km/h on Jan Smuts Avenue,which is an urban main road with a speed limit of 80km/h, at 10:17pm.

“04:30am on 31 January 2015 the vehicle was travelling at 210km/h on the N1 western,” Stoger said.

“The speed is above the 130km/h threshold.”

Nandkissor asked Stoger how many trips were recorded as being over the speed limit.

“There are 37 over the National speed limit,” Stoger said.

Later Stoger showed the court ,using the projector, where Naidoo’s vehicle then halted on William Nicol Drive, which is where he was involved in an accident with Mhere’s and another vehicle.

Court adjourned till Wednesday.

African News Agency