Engineers not to blame for off-ramp death!

no engineering failure was to blame for the collapse of scaffolding at the stormvoel road off-ramp in pretoria yesterday, when a truck rammed into support structures where upgrading was taking place.
therefore, no formal investigation will be undertaken by the engineering council of south africa (ecsa), the national engineering watchdog.

the accident comes at a time when there is much angst about the quality of engineering in south africa.

concern has arisen due to a number of construction accidents in the last few years.

on december 20 , 2001, the roof of the ice rink at the kolonnade shopping centre collapsed, injuring 21 people.

on october 17, 1996, the third floor of the northpark mall in pretoria mall collapsed during construction, killing four people and seriously injuring many more.

on july 6, 1998, 14 people were killed and 19 injured when the injaka bridge in mpumalanga collapsed in mid-construction.

the northpark mall incident led to a historic decision made by ecsa last week when it disqualified a professional engineer permanently from registration due to gross misconduct.

christiaan hattingh, the engineer who designed the northpark mall, has been found guilty of improper conduct by transgressing the code of professional conduct prescribed for those registered with ecsa.

meanwhile, ecsa has stated that the findings of the injaka bridge accident are only expected in march or april this year, five years after the incident occurred.

however, yesterday’s incident appears to relate solely to driver error.

it was reported that one person was killed and three people injured when the scaffolding used for construction work at the stormvoel road offramp from the n1 highway in pretoria collapsed.

a truck travelling along stormvoel road from mamelodi hit the scaffolding used for construction work on the n1.

grinaker lta, the company responsible for the construction work, will not be investigated but the driver of the truck could face a charge of culpable homicide.