Free State Bus Crash Highlights Dangers of Overloaded Vehicles

• Three people died, and over 70 others were injured early on Monday, 22 December, when an overloaded bus overturned on the N1 highway in the Free State
• This marks the province’s second major fatal accident since the start of the festive season
• The crash took place around 1:50 am, roughly 20 km from Edenburg on the route to Bloemfontein

Justin Williams, a journalist at Briefly News since 2024, covers South Africa’s current affairs. Before joining Briefly News, he served as a writer and chief editor at Right for Education Africa’s South African chapter.

FREE STATE - An early-morning bus crash on the N1 in the Free State left three people dead and more than 70 injured on Monday, 22 December 2025, making it the province’s second major road tragedy of the festive season.

The bus was overloaded

The incident occurred at around 1:50 am, about 20 kilometres from Edenburg toward Bloemfontein. According to Sipho Towa, chairperson of Road Incident Management Systems, the bus was overloaded, carrying more passengers than its legal capacity of 70 and was towing a trailer. Emergency services quickly attended to the scene, transporting the injured to nearby hospitals, including National District Hospital in Bloemfontein, Albert Nzula District Hospital in Trompsburg, Pelonomi Hospital, and Botshabelo District Hospital.

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Those killed included one man and two women, all over the age of 30, with their bodies taken to the Bloemfontein Mortuary. The Free State had already experienced another fatal accident earlier in the festive season when six people lost their lives in a head-on collision on the R57 between Heilbron and Petrus Steyn.

Authorities enforcing road safety

Transport Minister Barbara Creecy reiterated the government’s commitment to enforcing road safety during the holiday period. She noted that authorities would maintain round-the-clock high-visibility patrols, increase alcohol-related enforcement, and monitor areas with heavy pedestrian activity to ensure adherence to traffic laws.

Creecy highlighted that factors such as speeding, alcohol abuse, reckless driving, driver fatigue, and pedestrian incidents remain major contributors to road fatalities, particularly in rural and peri-urban areas. She stressed that improved driver behaviour is crucial to preventing such deaths. Preliminary figures from the 2025 festive season road safety campaign suggest some progress: between 1 and 16 December, fatal crashes fell by around 21%, with a similar decline in the number of fatalities compared with the same period last year.

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Teachers left dead in fatal Eastern Cape accident

Briefly News also reported that a bakkie carrying teachers was involved in a crash in Ngqeleni, Eastern Cape. The crash, which happened on 24 June 2025, left three teachers injured and two others seriously injured. Some South Africans were left worried following the accident, remarking that the province was cursed.

The province's Transport Spokesperson, Unathi Binqose, mourned the accident. Binqose said that society has lost teachers who had a meaningful role to play and whose lives were suddenly cut short. The cause of the accident is still under investigation.

Source: Briefly News