Poor behaviour on South African roads is not confined to politicians or blue-light convoys, as incidents from Kruger National Park to Nampo show.
The death of a mother and her child on the N1 road outside Bela Bela 11 days ago is tragic beyond belief.
Beauty Shoperai was crossing the road to see to her husband who had been killed in a motor accident shortly before.
The car that hit her was driven by the police protector of Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi, who was sitting in the back.
The commentariat were quick to hit their keyboards with condemnation – projecting the general loathing of blue light use – but perhaps the minister’s driver was not at fault.
If he was driving at the recommended speed and a pedestrian (which the Highway Code specifically prohibits from being on a motorway) stepped in front of him, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Whatever the case, that’s for the inquest to decide. But as fast as we are to point fingers at ostensible government fat cats, many of us are guilty of appalling behaviour behind the wheel, like Petrus Janse van Rensburg, the lout in the Kruger Park caught on camera speeding and drifting on the dirt roads.
A hasty video apology the day after this newspaper reported the incident isn’t enough to cut it.
All it does is help expedite the punishment as an acknowledgement of guilt.
Van Rensburg should be punished and possibly banned from driving in the park, if for no other reason than to set an example to anyone else who wants to show off.
We can rely on the lions and elephants to resolve the usual idiocy of visitors stepping out of their cars for better social media posters, but not in a case like this, spawned from a toxic mess of arrogance and selfishness, where the smaller animals will pay the price if they get hit by a fast-moving vehicle.
Assumptions, typically based on prejudice, are dangerous. Ask the people stuck in 16km traffic jams for over an hour every day to get into Nampo outside Bothaville last week.
The idiots trying to jump the queue by driving down the oncoming lane or barrelling onto the gravel verge were the last demographic the normal moaners would have expected.
But, as the numberplates from GP, NW and ZN showed, being higher up on the social ladder is not a natural antidote for entitled shittiness.
At least no mothers with children on their backs perished in the rush to Nampo. There’s no guarantee it can’t happen, though.
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