TREAT SA MOTORISTS LIKE SA COPS TREAT US

Sir,

Thank you for the space given to me to respond to the ‘Disgusted Motorist’ who wrote a letter accusing the traffic police of giving a receipt to a South African citizen who was arrested for a traffic offence.
I am not supporting the police in any way, but I want the ‘Disgusted Motorist’ to know that the South African police do worse things than what that Swazi policeman did.

Just about one week ago, I was driving to Nelspruit through the Ngwenya Border Gate.
After the toll gate, where I paid E51, I drove for about 2km, where I saw the South African police waiting for any car with a foreign registration number to extort money from. I know this because while I drove past them they had stopped a Mozambique-registered car and were shouting at the driver.

After driving for about 5km from there, I heard a siren behind me signalling me to stop. I was just close to the stop sign where my GPS had told me I will have to wait for 20 minutes because of road construction. What I realised was that they were following me from where I had seen them because my car registration was ‘QSD’.

I pulled over by the side of the road. It was raining heavily and I was wet to my skin. The officers, one woman and a man, started yelling at me for overtaking a car wrongly, which I did not remember I doing. They demanded a spot payment of E800 for wrong overtaking. I gave them the money but after asking for my receipt, they told me if I wanted a receipt I must go back and drive after them to the toll gate where their station was and at that place I would have to pay E1 500 and be prepared to sleep in cells that Friday night and be taken to court the next day Saturday.

The police had timed me so well that where they stopped me it was rather impossible to make a u-turn because the oncoming vehicles had waited at the other side for 20 minutes and when they have the clearance to move, they are not prepared to stop for anyone.

Because of that I had to let go of my precious E800, which I was going to use in Nelspruit.
Here in Swaziland, when a policeman stops you they ask for E60, so why should these South Africans complain on our roads? Here they drive with impunity, they do not observe road rules and they do not respect us here in Swaziland when they drive on our roads, even though they do not pay for toll gates. Mind you, I had to pay another E51 on my return.

I returned from Nelspruit on Sunday and on Monday while I was driving at Matsapha, around KaSipho where there is a four-way stop, I saw a South African-registered car jumping into the road when I had arrived first. I shouted at the driver and I felt like coming out of the car and giving him a piece of my mind, but then I remembered the road rage which ended in the death of a motorcyclist in that same country, so I drove on. But I was really angry because of the experience I had in South Africa the previous week.

My observation is that there are a lot of South African-registered cars in Swaziland whose drivers do not respect our road signs, or maybe it is total disregard for us as Swazis. We know that their roads are better than ours but we are satisfied with what we have.
If I had my own way, I would make life very difficult for these foreign cars because they do the same to us outside our borders. I hope the so-called ‘Disgusted Motorist’ will read this and keep their mouth shut!
A victim of South African police

Dear Victim,

It is probable that, coming from a country where you part with E800 for a traffic fine, South African motorists find it cheap to break the rules here. Perhaps the solution is to raise the traffic fines in Swaziland.
Editor

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