‘Joy ride’ collision
Vehicle allegedly ‘taken’ from Mlungisi car wash
Mlungisi residents are still in shock after a collision involving two vehicles last Sunday morning – with one of the vehicles allegedly having been removed without the owner’s permission from a local car wash.
The 11am accident at the intersection of Sixishe and Ncetezo streets between a Golf GTI and a vehicle belonging to the Eastern Cape Health Department forensics pathology unit, resulted in the latter crashing through the fence of a home.
Nokholekile Mfakadolo, 62, was sitting in her lounge watching television when she heard a loud noise. Fearing for the safety of her four-year-old grandson who was playing in the yard, she looked outside and saw the vehicle that had come to a halt only a few metres away from where the child had been playing.
“I saw a huge amount of dust and I ran out looking for my grandson, but I could not find him. I did not see that he had run in the opposite direction and had gone into the house to hide.”
The driver of the Golf is not believed to be the owner of the vehicle, but instead an employee of a car wash based in Mlungisi.
“The owner of the car wash came to see the damage his employee had done. I told him we were not safe as the fence had fallen. The owner of the car wash said he was still in shock but he would fix our fence. We are pensioners and we do not have money or strength to fix the fence.”
Golf owner Ndimphiwe Dayi said he had left his vehicle to be cleaned at the car wash and was shocked to find, upon his return, that his car was gone.
He said he was told that one of the employees had left in his car.
“I decided to go to the Mlungisi police station for them to send vans to look for my car.”
He then returned to the car wash but received a call from a friend on the way.
“He informed me that my car had been involved in an accident.”
Dayi said the extensive damage to the vehicle would have huge financial implications for him.
Police spokesman Captain Namhla Mdleleni confirmed cases of reckless and negligent driving and driving a vehicle without the owner’s consent had been opened.
No-one was injured in the crash and the driver of the Golf had appeared in the Queenstown Magistrate’s Court.
Eastern Cape provincial transport spokesperson Unathi Binqose said the department was looking into what the government vehicle was doing in the area on a Sunday and if it was found to have been misused they would act.