In the latest attack on a motorist on the N2, Cape Times deputy editor Aziz Hartley tells how a rock struck his car’s windscreen on the freeway near Bonteheuwel while he was on his way to the office in the city centre yesterday.
“Scary, this is very scary,” I told myself as I pulled off the road and got out of the car. To calm my nerves I lit a cigarette. Moments earlier, I had been driving in the fast lane when out of nowhere a rock was lobbed over the concrete barrier on the N2 freeway separating Bonteheuwel and Heideveld.
Bah! In a split second the corner of my windscreen shattered. There was no time to avoid it. I did not even realise glass splinters had landed in my lap. It was about 9.20am yesterday. After taking the R300 out of Mitchells Plain, I joined the N2. After the Duinefontein Road bridge, my day changed.
Driving at 110km/h, it was impossible to avoid the missile.
Gracefully, it struck the bottom corner of the windscreen, but a few centimetres higher and things could have been worse. I managed to avoid other vehicles and pulled off near Jakes Gerwel Drive, where five concerned security guards came to check up on me. A metro officer stopped and, after checking that I was not hurt, advised me to report the matter.
Like many motorists, I thought these things only happened to other people. But reality sank in as I entered Athlone police station. I thought about several other incidents on the N2 that this paper had reported on. Athlone police sent me to Manenberg police station, where a case was registered.
Mayco member for safety and security JP Smith said not many attacks had been reported between the Duinefontein and Jakes Gerwel off-ramps, but some people had started to mimic the modus operandi of attackers on the “Hell Run” between Somerset West and Cape Town International Airport. Smith said the possibility of criminals stoning motorists purely to be malicious could not be excluded. The City was finalising talks with the Airports Company SA to contract 86 additional law enforcement staff linked to the airport, he said.
Attacks on the N2 this year:
A week ago Tristan Bruce, 27, was injured when his car was struck by a rock; on July 29 Warrant Officer Petrus Holz was robbed and stabbed to death by two people after he punctured a tyre. In May, a man was arrested for attempting to rob a metro police officer.
In April, Hermanus resident Keith Ashen ruptured a tyre but continued driving and called for help.
Police spokesperson FC van Wyk confirmed yesterday’s incident.