A New Menace on our Roads

I passed a minor accident scene the other day in Randburg and counted about four tow-truck vehicles that had converged like vultures to a kill. You may think this is ridiculous, but I've noticed even more tow-trucks at other accident scenes, only slightly more serious. They had apparently also arrived on the scene much sooner than the traffic police. How do they manage such a feat?

I've heard that they use radios which can tune in to the police frequencies, Surely this can't be legal and surely the police are aware of this. So what are they (the police) doing about it? Nothing as usual! I digress. So, what is it about about tow-truck vehicles that I consider a new scourge on our roads?

It's not that so many of them arrive at an accident scene, nor how they find out about the accident at the same time, or sooner than the police. It's the manner in which they get there and the time it takes them to arrive. Yes, tow-truck drivers are fast replacing taxi drivers as the new kings of reckless driving, and showing the finger to road rules and regulations. It's impossible not to miss these assholes driving with reckless abandon, breaking every rule of the road, and literally forcing you out of the way in their efforts to get to the scene of an accident. And amazingly, the police are never around to stop this madness, or more accurately, don't care.

The other menace I've noticed, which is occurring ever more frequently lately, is the high-speed escorting through traffic, of so called high-profile public service figures, especially politicians, by the police. And, I suspect, even low-ranking public servants from local Metro Councils and local government have cottoned on to this despicable way to travel, and are abusing it with gay abandon. Why do scum-bag politicians (the Health Minister has been reported as a known culprit) and other civil servants have a right to commandeer police vehicles which we are told are in short supply, to form a high-speed cavalcade through traffic, and inconvenience us who pay for these resources in the first place. I have personally witnessed how these motorcades arrogantly force other motorists aside as they rush through traffic.

Police-escorted politicians in fast motorcades, are reminiscent of tin-pot dictatorships around the world. Are we too, heading there?