n South African Journal of Criminal Justice - General principles and specific offences : recent cases

Abstract

It has been more than forty years since the Appellate Division approved in principle the approach of finding a motorist guilty of murder for a transgression on the road which resulted in death, in S v Van Zyl 1969 (1) SA 553 (A) at 557B-C. Nevertheless, there has been prosecutorial reluctance to charge motorists who have caused death on the road with murder, principally because although the conduct of driving a motor car bears an inherent risk of harm to others, its social utility makes such conduct indispensable (see R Whiting 'Thoughts on dolus eventualis' (1988) 1 SACJ 440).