Ian Short

A typical night in Johannesburg?

G and I were driving back from a music club in Jo’burg at 1am when we came across a woman who had driven into, and felled, some traffic lights. We pulled up alongside her and asked whether she was okay. She said no, and then pulled away. She didn’t get far because her bumper was hanging off and was tangled up with her front wheel. She ground to a halt in the middle of a cross-roads junction, which in the day time is a busy intersection. We moved off to park fifty metres down the road, and as we walked back to meet (and help) her, a guy pulled up nearby, and she left her mangled car, and drove off with him. We noted the guy’s number plate.

She locked the doors of her battered car when she left, and it was stuck in the middle of the junction. There was glass, traffic lights, and mess. Local kids were hanging around and joking about stealing the car. Two other groups quickly arrived on the scene. The first were the vulture tow trucks. These are guys in tow trucks who search the streets of Johannesburg for broken down vehicles to tow away. They must work on commission. Also around, but less interested in the action, were private security patrols who work for local wealthy residential groups. A block of houses may get together and employ a security patrol to monitor their neighbourhood. These security cars came and went; mostly, they weren’t interested. One of them drove 300 metres down the road to the police station, to see if the police would come out to sort things out. (The police had been phoned earlier, but weren’t up to much.)

We waited by the abandoned car – me and G, two vulture trucks, a couple of private security cars, and a load of kids – and then a woman drove past us, continued about 200 metres, then swerved across the opposite side of the highway into a wall, which collapsed. In an instant, the vulture trucks were after her. I’m not sure whether they were keen to help, or keen to claim the latest wreck. Everyone else went off to see the recent crash, and left only me and G by the original car. After twenty minutes or so, with more vulture trucks and security cars and various others turning up, G and I went to see the new crash. A single drunk woman had knocked down the wall, destroyed her car, but luckily lived. The metro cops had arrived at this crash (traffic police), and they were talking with the owner of the wall, who was worried about the direct route into her back garden. Kids were teasing the car crash woman for being drunk. The metro cops weren’t bothered about people hanging around. They didn’t seem bothered about anything. We tried to give them the number plate for the other crash, but they weren’t interested.

Later on we returned to the original crash and found the mother and brother of the traffic light crash woman. They had come to sort things out. “She never does anything like this.” About one hour after the first crash, the police showed up. They looked bored. We left soon after.

The following day, a couple of blocks away, I saw that another set of traffic lights had been felled.