Recent incidents of road rage caught on camera have cast a spotlight on such behaviour after sparking a wave of public reaction on social media.
However, such incidents were not an isolated and were becoming a common trend on Joburg roads.
This was according to Metro police spokesperson, Edna Mamonyane who said motorists were quick to react towards each other with varying levels of aggression.
“We are dealing with very angry drivers,” she said. “I don’t know if other cities have this problem but it is a serious problem here [in Joburg] even resulting in loss of life.”
Referring particularly to Joburg, she said the problem stemmed from a combination of motorists being faced with daily gridlock traffic and people’s lack of patience.
She said it was important to educate drivers to avoid escalating situations on the roads.
Motorists needed to exercise more patience and understanding towards other drivers, she said.
Referring to drivers who resorted to extreme or reactive behaviour on the roads to impress their passengers, or not be shown up by other motorists, she warned that motorists should not be driven by their ego.
Further, she said passengers should try to diffuse a situation rather than compound it.
“Often, when a person does something wrong, as passengers we react asking what that person is doing or why they did it, bringing it to the driver’s attention and fuelling the fire.”
She added that a passenger should talk to the driver when they see that he or she is becoming agitated or aggressive.
“Talk to them, tell them to calm down and let it go because it’s not worth it.”
Mamonyane was offering this advice after footage of a road rage incident on Witkoppen Road went viral. It was captured on a witness’s cellphone of a passenger of a silver Porsche kicking another vehicle’s side mirror and door before punching the motorist through an opened window while the vehicle was stopped at a traffic light.
Only days after the Witkoppen incident, a second video of a 65-year-old man being verbally assaulted by another motorist in Pretoria emerged. The man was allegedly also punched multiple times during the incident.
In February this year, motorcyclist Douglas Pearce was shot and killed during an altercation with another motorist on Malibongwe Drive.
