The plight of the blue-light bully

Last week I wrote about South Africa’s hate affair with the pedestrian. And judging by some of the comments, there is a lot of hate out there! One chap even said he would go out of his way to knock me down if he saw me on the street. Needless to say I have shaved my beard and I now go running in a balaclava to hide my identity. I have also started speaking in an Australian accent to further confuse this crazed driver and his nutter brethren. Anyway, to be honest I expected these sorts of comments. South Africans are a fairly militant bunch. Years of craziness have left us slightly scarred and a bit mental. Sort of like old smack-heads trying to come clean, we still have that twitch about us. And this attitude extends to our behaviour on the road.

Which is why I have been a little surprised by the country’s reaction to the saga of blue-light brigade. While we love to drive like loons, we also seem to love getting our knickers in a knot over this blue-light bully, Officer Dladla. An ongoing story that has been in and out the press for the last year. If you don’t know about it, this is the short version. Some driver was in the fast lane and Zuma’s cavalcade wanted to get past but the driver didn’t move. So the cavalcade forced the driver out the way and then shot at him just to make sure he wasn’t a terrorist. By South African driving norms, none of you should be blinking an eye now. You should be reading that and thinking, what’s the big deal? This driver clearly deserved it. Slowing down traffic, hindering a man in a bigger car and generally just causing a nuisance. They should have machine gunned his car. Called for air support and napalmed that bitch’s ass.

Ok, maybe the napalm is a bit excessive. But you get my point. Officer Dladla, by the unwritten law of the streets, was within his rights to take umbrage to this other driver. It doesn’t matter that the other driver was an 85-year-old retiree. And it doesn’t matter the middle lane was too busy for him to move over. He was in an old skedonk going slow. He was in the way. And we can’t accept that. It is like one Marius de Kock said on my last post: It is a Darwinian thing. Our roads are all about the survival of the fittest. Well, not really the fittest, you can be a blubber whale, but as long as you can fit behind the wheel of your 7-Series or your Range Rover with the custom made bulbar, you are fit to rule this car-eat-car world. And right at the top of that petrol chain sits the presidential cavalcade. Not one car but a whole line of them working in unison to stamp their authority on the road. Like the way a pack of hyenas can eat a lion, this posse feel nothing for the Hummer, the 750i and even the 18-wheeler. So an old boy in a hatchback is padkos to them. A 1400cc biltong stick. To be devoured in one gulp. And rightly so.

But it seems people have turned their back on the natural order of the bitumen jungle. They have decided to vilify this poor chap, Officer Dladla. People have said that he needs to stand trial. He must be held accountable for his actions. He must pay for this crime. It is no wonder the man went to court yesterday claiming to be depressed. He feels like the entire zoo has turned on him. Made him the scapegoat for all their ills. He must be sitting there thinking, what did I do? The president-to-be was in the back of the car and some old fella got in the way. I was only defending our traditions, the customs of our streets. I was only doing what everyone does in their own small way.

P.S. To the guy on Kloof Street who wouldn’t let me in his shop with the balaclava, I didn’t like your stuff anyway.