A mom and her infant are lucky to escape with their lives after their car was attacked and flipped on the R300.
The incident, which occurred on Monday night on the R300 between Stock Road and Jakes Gerwel Drive, has sparked outrage on social media, with mense calling on authorities to step up patrols to keep motorists safe on the notorious road.
Witnesses say an object was placed in the road, causing the unidentified mother to have a tyre burst.
She lost control of the VW Polo, which swerved and flipped over at the embankment, landing on its roof.
Members of a nearby neighbourhood watch were quickly on the scene, preventing robbers from attacking the woman.
A witness at the scene said: “Although the car rolled, none of the windows broke so there was no time for (the robbers) to get into the car and rob them.
“The family was on their way from Port Elizabeth to pick up someone in Cape Town and then make their way to Klawer.”
The witness said the woman was a medical professional and that she bought her new car only two weeks ago.
He added that both mom and baby were doing fine.
Pictures were posted on the Proudly Lentegeur 7785 Facebook page.
However, by last night, neither police nor the City’s Metro and Law Enforcement had any knowledge of it.
Motorists took to Facebook to express their shock at yet another incident on the R300, a notorious crime hotspot.
Peter Roberts posted: “We also drove there last night and almost became targets as one of the guys was standing in the middle of the road but I drove towards him and he jumped out of the way. We witnessed that accident. It is too dark on the R300. They need to install lights.”
The City’s Safety and Security boss, JP Smith, says although safeguarding the highway is SAPS’ job, City police have taken it upon themselves to maintain law and order on the R300 and N2.
“We are very concerned about the incident [if it did happen] but that area has not been a hotspot until now. It was always the N2 before and after the R300, the R300 between Heinz Park and Mitchells Plain and then towards Delft,” he explains.
“If the information proves credible I will inform officers to adapt their operation strategy to include that stretch.
“In the last months we have dramatically reduced the number of incidents, from between four to seven a week, to just one.
“We have CCTV cameras with motion detection and night vision that can pick up when these guys place things on the road.
“But there are blindspots and if the criminals have noticed this we must work at it.”