The minister of transport, Barbara Creecy, has called for national action on scholar transport safety following the minibus taxi crash in Gauteng that claimed the lives of 12 learners. Just days earlier, metro police in Nelson Mandela Bay intercepted a 16-seater vehicle carrying 40 people -- predominantly schoolchildren.

Three days before Monday's horror scholar transport crash in Gauteng, which claimed the lives of 12 learners, the Nelson Mandela Bay metro police stopped a massively overloaded minibus transporting 40 passengers -- most of them schoolchildren from Nelson Mandela Bay's Northern Areas.

Minibus taxis have a maximum passenger capacity of 16.

Metro police said the 27-year-old driver, who had an expired professional driving permit, attempted to evade the checkpoint and nearly collided with a metro police officer.

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He was arrested and charged with reckless and negligent driving, failure to comply with a lawful instruction, and overloading. He has since been released on warning.

Following Monday's horror crash, in which 12 learners were killed near Vanderbijlpark in Gauteng, the minister of transport, Barbara Creecy, and her deputy, Mkhuleko Hlengwa, on Tuesday said they had instructed traffic law enforcement agencies to intensify their law enforcement operations nationally with a specific focus on scholar transport.

Creecy and Hlengwa stressed that they want traffic officials to focus on overloading, roadworthiness and speeding.

They said there would be a "zero tolerance attitude" that would include lawlessness and non-compliance by private operators and drivers of learner transport. They ordered that unroadworthy scholar transport vehicles be...