Woman mugged in Camps Bay by three men in a Mazda 626
If there is one thing we know living in South Africa it is that we have to be aware of surroundings at all time. My best friend *Jill is one of the most vigilant people I know. She is cautious, alert and always aware of what’s going on around her. Yesterday, she was mugged by three men in a moving car and was lucky to escape being driven over. She did nothing out of the ordinary, she did exactly what most of us women do every single day and it is for this reason that I write this article.
At around midday yesterday, 19 January 2016, Jill arrived in Camps Bay to meet a friend for lunch. She parked her car between the bowling club and the tennis courts in The Drive. She took out her laptop and her handbag and started to walk towards the restaurant. She paused briefly to check if she had locked her car. As she turned, her shoulder, with her handbag strap over it, was exposed to the road. It was at this point that a Mazda 626 with three young men drove past. The passenger of the Mazda reached out of the window and grabbed her bag.
At first Jill thought it was a friend playing a prank on her until it dawned on her that this was no joke, “I thought, this can not be happening.” The man tugged at her bag as Jill tried to get her arm and her bag out of the car. The car did not stop moving and Jill was forced to run along side the car while screaming for help.
A woman in an SUV was pulling out of a parking space and heard the screams and so stopped, which blocked the way of the Mazda. This caused the Mazda to speed up and ramp the pavement causing Jill’s body to go with the car. It also caused Jill to fall to the ground, the car missed her by inches as it drove off. She landed in the middle of the road with bruises and scrapes all over her. Thankfully she didn’t go under the car. “It could have been a lot worse,” she says, “these guys did not give a damn. Had I not gotten loose I would have been dragged alongside the car or been driven over.”
With it being a busy road there were many witnesses and bystanders who helped Jill after the incident. Someone took down the licence plate number but unfortunately it was tracked to a motorbike in Joburg which either means the plates were stolen or the number was taken down incorrectly. Nonetheless, a police case has been opened and the local neighbourhood watch is on the look out for these criminals!
What is so terrifying is that this happened not only to someone that I love, but that it happened to someone who I know is so careful about everything. It just goes to show that anything can happen anywhere, at anytime and you can never really let your guard down. “Don’t think it won’t happen to you. I am very vigilant, I’ve never even lost a bag or a phone or anything, but I don’t have eyes on the back of my head,” says Jill.
Jill surprised herself by fighting back ,”I should have let go of the bag but I wasn’t thinking straight. No matter how prepared you think you are, you have no idea what you will do in a certain situation.”
Just as Jill says, “The best thing to do is give them whatever they want, everything can be replaced.” But when panic and fear sets in, you may react differently to how you would expect to.
Johan Jonck from Arrive Alive says, “The sad reality of road safety in South Africa is that there are more than the reckless and lawless unsafe driving behaviour that we need to be alert to! Even though we do not wish to look for and warn about a criminal around every corner we need to remain vigilant.”
“We need to remain vigilant and alert at all times – also as pedestrians -and if we can have less of a target easily on display it will make our pedestrians safer! …we might well have to look at – similar to not keeping valuables on the front passenger seat in a vehicle – what we are carrying and what could most possibly make us a target.”
Click though for more tips on pedestrian safety.
*Not her real name
Pic sourced on Google Maps