SyndicationTuesday, December 06, 2005
My car was hi-jacked today
by Amanda
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Well, I suppose, more accurately, it would be attempted theft, since no-one was actually in the car when it happened. Still, that is what the cops are charging the poor boy who dunnit with.
I don't know eactly what happened - I wasn't there. But I heard all about it when I got home - shots fired, and all.
My gran, who is visiting us for the holidays, wanted to borrow my car to go shopping, so I took James' car to 'Varsity (James was feeling poorly and not wont to go anywhere). I debated with myself in the morning whether or not to disable the anti-hijack system, which is quite complicated to operate, thinking, perhaps my gran would have forgotten where the secret button was and all. I decided against it - after all, she had driven it since I had the system installed, surely she would remember?
No such luck, apparently. She managed to get it out of the garage, and then the system locked down the car, and neither she nor James could remember how to re-set it again. (My phone battery was dead, by the way, having played like four hours of Josh Groban through my phone's MP3 player.) Anyway, she left it there, parked outside the garage, and went about her business (which included, now, a walk to the shops).
Several hours later, our neighbour, who happens to be a policeman, came home for something, saw a strange black man sitting in the driver's seat of my car. He didn't think anything strange of it at the time, having not seen my car before, and thus not realising it was ours. But, when he saw two other men duck down at the front of the car, and try to sneak away around the side (cause that's not suspicious at all, no! Dumb-asses!), he stopped, and the two of them fled. He managed, somehow, to collar the third guy in the driver's seat, firing warning shots at the others, but couldn't persue them because he was alone, and had to keep the guy he had managed to capture in his police van.
I'm grateful that he came home when he did, although he sounds like a bit of a psycho - apparently, he expressed regret that the guy hadn't actually been driving the car yet - then, apparently, he would have had license to shoot him in the head.
In. The. Head!
I can't imagine there would be many car valet companies with skull bone and brains removal service on their list of customer services (although you never know, with the level of crime in South Africa!)
In the end, it cost me (or my gran rather) R600 to replace the driver door lock and ignition, which they had well and truly buggered. And there is another story for my upcoming post about South African business sense (or nonsense!)
I don't know eactly what happened - I wasn't there. But I heard all about it when I got home - shots fired, and all.
My gran, who is visiting us for the holidays, wanted to borrow my car to go shopping, so I took James' car to 'Varsity (James was feeling poorly and not wont to go anywhere). I debated with myself in the morning whether or not to disable the anti-hijack system, which is quite complicated to operate, thinking, perhaps my gran would have forgotten where the secret button was and all. I decided against it - after all, she had driven it since I had the system installed, surely she would remember?
No such luck, apparently. She managed to get it out of the garage, and then the system locked down the car, and neither she nor James could remember how to re-set it again. (My phone battery was dead, by the way, having played like four hours of Josh Groban through my phone's MP3 player.) Anyway, she left it there, parked outside the garage, and went about her business (which included, now, a walk to the shops).
Several hours later, our neighbour, who happens to be a policeman, came home for something, saw a strange black man sitting in the driver's seat of my car. He didn't think anything strange of it at the time, having not seen my car before, and thus not realising it was ours. But, when he saw two other men duck down at the front of the car, and try to sneak away around the side (cause that's not suspicious at all, no! Dumb-asses!), he stopped, and the two of them fled. He managed, somehow, to collar the third guy in the driver's seat, firing warning shots at the others, but couldn't persue them because he was alone, and had to keep the guy he had managed to capture in his police van.
I'm grateful that he came home when he did, although he sounds like a bit of a psycho - apparently, he expressed regret that the guy hadn't actually been driving the car yet - then, apparently, he would have had license to shoot him in the head.
In. The. Head!
I can't imagine there would be many car valet companies with skull bone and brains removal service on their list of customer services (although you never know, with the level of crime in South Africa!)
In the end, it cost me (or my gran rather) R600 to replace the driver door lock and ignition, which they had well and truly buggered. And there is another story for my upcoming post about South African business sense (or nonsense!)
At Mon Jul 10, 07:24:00 pm GMT+2,
Anonymous said…
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