The Wild Wild West(ern Cape)

Like a loaded spring, tightly coiled and then released, his Texan drawl looped and corkscrewed and the words rolled off his tongue like a Slinky down some stairs, “Damn, it’s like the Wild West out there!”

If I closed my eyes I could’ve imagined he tipped his Stetson, placed a hand on a shining belt buckle, and maybe rolled a matchstick around his teeth… but he didn’t.

This American tourist – bright shirt, too-short shorts, those spectacles with flip-up sunglass shades – was talking about our roads.

Not the dirt or concrete, the litter or pigeon corpses, but the way we South Africans bully and barge our vehicles along and across the skinny lanes of our highways and byways.

He’d just driven to and from Simonstown and was now back in Long Street telling of the terror that is driving in the Western Cape.

THIS TOWN AIN’T BIG ENOUGH FOR THE BOTH OF US
I slowly press my foot down on the accelerator. It’s been half an hour since I got out of first gear. A police siren makes me move over to let the big truck packed with awaiting trial prisoners through. As I try to move back I slam my brakes as a red BMW recklessly swerves into my lane, the front of the car barely filling the gap and bullying its way ahead of me. I don’t hoot or make a fuss because, well, this is how it goes.

First came road rage – a selfish act or illegal manoeuvre would cause outrage. We would sit on our horns and scream expletives from the window. When we realised the driver in front couldn’t hear us we’d resort to our limited knowledge of sign language to get the message of our unhappiness across.

Then came apathy – we turfed this in the big box of ‘Things We Can’t Do Anything About So Why Bother’. Drivers balanced their right to indignation with the energy it consumed and decided to save the energy.

Finally we adopted the proverb, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”, and sucked on the scabby sore to be infected with the disease of inconsiderate driving. No longer would we be muggins waiting in the queue at the turn-off; we’d just drive in the parallel lane and cut in at the front like so many others.

We took what we hated and made it a part of us.

…BUT I DIDN’T SHOOT THE DEPUTY!
Columnist Chris Roper pinpoints it perfectly when he writes that the attitude of South Africans is: It’s only a crime if someone else is doing it. We all still tut when a taxi drives in the yellow lines, stops on a red line, and cuts through traffic like a hot spur through churned cream.

But slowly it’s getting to the point where we will all do these things. It’s not quite there yet, but at the rate we’re all starting to ignore the rules of the road and the rights of other perambulators it’s only a few years off.

Instead of following any shining examples that might be out there, we have decided to instead emulate the attitudes of the worst examples.

THE WILD WILD WEST(ERN CAPE)
We might as well have John Wayne and Clint Eastwood operating public transport.

Taxi drivers are the modern day cowboys as they tear through the streets like bandits escaping the cavalry, and so often are involved in turf wars that end in a shoot-out injuring more innocent bystanders than the grunting gunslingers.

I remember a firefight in the Nineties between two taxi factions outside Claremont train station that quickly became known as “Gunfight at the OK Bazaar” – at the OK Corral they kept livestock, but at the OK Bazaar you’ll only find jackets and shoes made from livestock.

What we need is a sheriff. Maybe if we did away with all the fat, incompetent policemen and replaced them with one fearless, trigger happy vaquero he (or she) could round up these rabble-rousers and lock them up for good.

Personally, however, I’m not in favour of public lynching.

Or maybe the best thing would be for all of us to just obey the rules of the road and be thoughtful of others – stop talking on our cell phones while cutting people off, start using our indicators and stop racing to block the auto indicating into our lane, possibly let someone into traffic once in a while.

If we do this we’ll soon discover that the simple act of being nice makes us feel good. And we can save on big belt buckles and expensive shitkickers.