Cruel: This picture was apparently taken moments before impact (Picture: Barcroft)

Common sense is evidently in short supply among some lorry drivers on South Africa’s roads. For a giraffe has died after hitting a bridge.

The unfortunate animal was one of two being transported in the back of a truck on a motorway near Johannesburg.

According to eyewitnesses, one of them knocked its head when the lorry drove under a bridge.

Shocked motorist Dion Abrahamson said: ‘I saw the truck transporting the two giraffes at 11.45 this morning. The truck was just before the Van Buuren off-ramp on the N1 to Pretoria. The giraffes were blindfolded so they couldn’t even see any bridges. Disgraceful.’




Engineer Thinus Botha, 32, was also driving on the road when he heard the ‘loud crack’.

He had spotted the two giraffes and pulled over to take the photo you can see above.

‘I pulled over just before the bridge and a few seconds after I took the photo the first giraffe hit its head on the bridge,’ he said. ‘There was a loud bang and I saw blood coming from the nose of the giraffe. I hear that he didn’t make it and I’m not surprised.’

A spokesman for the country’s equivalent of the RSPCA said post-mortem examination was necessary to determine the cause of death.

He said the animals were en route to a farm in Warmbaths, about 100 miles outside Johannesburg.