Some days ago I was at work when I got a frantic phone call from the fiancee of a co-worker and friend of mine. He told me his girlfriend had just hit a pedestrian on her way through the streets of Johannesburg going towards the highway. He was trying to get through the traffic to her, from the suburbs. He asked if I could help her.

On the spur of the moment, and knowing how these blacks work with claims after an accident has occurred, I decided to get my camera out of my car to take it with to get photos as evidence. So these are some of the photos I took.

By the way, I would suggest that anyone involved in an accident should keep a camera or a cell phone handy which can take photos. These can be powerful evidence. One co-worker of mine told me how photos he took prevented someone from making false claims against him after an accident he had.

I decided to walk rather than drive through the traffic. I walked and walked and eventually after quite a long walk, with the highway in sight, I finally saw a black pedestrian lying in the road.

My co-worker had never been in an accident before. Add to that the fact that she is several months pregnant. She was quite traumatised. She told me (and you’ll see the evidence), that she was driving in the right hand lane when suddenly she heard something and then she looked in her rear view mirror and saw a black man lying in the road. She stopped and only then did she see the damage to her car.

In essence, he had come running from the left and he ran into her! (You’ll see the photo evidence).

Now some years ago when I worked in the south of Johannesburg, I used to watch a fascinating phenomenon. There’d be 4 lanes of traffic – jam packed – bumper to bumper – and young blacks would dash at an extremely high speed from lane to lane, looking for slight gaps between the moving cars. It was pretty hairy stuff and I always figured they’re looking for a chance to die. This idiot seems to have wanted to run across two lanes of cars without looking in the 2nd lane and she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Here he is lying on the road attended to by some medics when I arrived:

He was actually not in bad shape. There was a little bit of blood on the road – probably from when he fell and hit the road with his head. But he could move his arms and legs and nothing seemed broken. There were no tears or any damage to his clothing at all.

Here is the damage to her car. He hit her from the left – on the passenger side.

Note the dent on her car. He actually hit HER! He was coming at such a speed from the side that he whacked into her and then fell on to the windscreen.

Here you can see the damage more closely. He also knocked her side view mirror completely off in the process.

A closer view. The damage to her little car? R12,000 (about US$1,600(43)+).

I took photos and gave them all to her just in case he later comes up with a different story and they are hit with all sorts of fake claims.

To add to her hassles – she did not park her car in her garage at home because of renovations to her garage. That same night, a black guy climbed over the fence and smashed her window trying to get in to the car! But luckily the security people arrived in time.

As for the silly pedestrian. There is no question in my mind that he would recover 100% on short notice. Pedestrians in this country are notorious for being completely stupid and running in front of cars. More than half the accidents in this country involve pedestrians. They walk over highways and others are drunk but many are just plain stupid and do rash things. I’ve seen many rash things. Jan.