Below is the exact contents of today's COSATU media release. Go on, join in. You know you want to!


COSATU rolling mass action on E-tolling and Labour Brokers



The Congress of South African Trade Unions is mobilizing its two million members for the mother of all protests against the act of highway robbery set to be committed from 30 April 2012 - the Gauteng e-tolls! [More]

JOHANNESBURG - Several weeks after announcing "The South African National Roads Agency SOC Limited (SANRAL) would like to unequivocally state that no staff from either SANRAL or its toll operator, ETC, have conducted any roadblocks as described in the emails and social network postings that allege this" on the SANRAL website and in media releases sent out to the press, SANRAL has commissioned auditing firm Deloitte & Touche to conduct a "forensic investigation" into the matter. This has come after Howard Dembovsky of Justice Project SA sent an email to several parties at SANRAL, including but not limited to its CEO Nazir Alli enquiring why it was that such a claim had been made without him so much as being contacted to shed any light on the matter.

The word "unequivocally" means "leaving no doubt and/or unambiguous" and one has to ask why SANRAL chose to put the cart before the horse in issuing such a definitive statement and only initiating an investigation several weeks after doing so. But putting the cart before the horse seems to be the manner in which SANRAL operates and this is evident by the entire saga that has surrounded the Open Road Tolling (eTolling) issue of the Johannesburg and Pretoria freeways. [More]

More than 26 000 unlicensed drivers have been caught behind the wheel on Cape Town’s roads in just three months, says the city council.

The figure has officials so worried that the city’s safety and security portfolio committee has placed it high on the agenda at meetings, and it is exploring ways to tackle this “danger on the road”.

In July, 10 862 unlicensed drivers were bust by metro police and the city’s traffic services, the city said. In August, the figure dipped slightly to 9 507, while in June more than 6 000 unlicensed drivers were nabbed. [More]

An off duty ER24 paramedic on his way home from shift this evening was driving along the M7 towards Durban when he noticed a young man trying to flag down cars approximately 1 kilometer from the Hans Dettman offramp. The medic then noticed that there was a car that had overturned and he immediately stopped.

It appears that the 23 year old driver of the Opel Corsa Lite had lost control of his vehicle causing it to overturn and land on its roof. His cousin, a 17 year old boy, having just broken up for school holidays, was with him in the car. [More]

Thirteen people have lost their lives and seven other people have sustained multiple injuries after a taxi and a truck collided into one another on the R33 ( New Grey Town Road ) in Alandale just outside Pietermaritzburg this morning.

Emergency personnel arrived on the scene and found the taxi underneath the front part of the truck which had gone down an embankment and came to rest. The driver of the truck had already climbed out and was unhurt in the accident, was found seated on the bank and in shock to see what had happen. The commuters in the taxi were entrapped and needed rapid emergency medical care. [More]

Transport Minister Sibusiso Ndebele is to ask Cabinet to reduce the top speed limit from 120km/h to 100km/h.

"There are increasing calls and signs that something drastic needs to be done to arrest the current situation," Ndebele said on Tuesday. [More]

The taxi driver accused of knocking down an advocate in Lonehill, Fourways, was charged with attempted murder on Wednesday.

“If I look at the facts, the charges are those of reckless or negligent driving and attempted murder, which falls under schedule five bail application,” Randburg magistrate Vincent Pienaar told Matome Thamage, 30. [More]

Johannesburg - The Johannesburg advocate who was run over by a minibus taxi driver in Lonehill on Tuesday was still in a critical condition in hospital, her mother said on Wednesday.

"At this stage we are just focusing our energy on Kim's recovery," Patricia McCusker said by phone, ahead of the court appearance of a minibus taxi driver. [More]

TRANSPORT Minister Sbu Ndebele is expected to announce the implementation date of the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) during a summit on the initiative next month.

Aarto’s full roll-out failed to take off in March after pilot projects were launched in Tshwane in 2008 and Johannesburg a year later, leading to speculation the delay was due to a lack of capacity in the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC). [More]

Emergency personnel in Johannesburg had their hands full yesterday evening as multiple motor vehicle collisions occurred throughout the city.

The ER24 control centre received call outs to 20 motor vehicle collisions between 17:00 Friday evening and 08:00 Saturday morning. A senior staff member of the company was making his way home from the office when he witnessed a horrific collision in Roodepoort. [More]