Plan to curb tow-truck menace

RECKLESS tow-truck drivers who cause havoc and endanger lives on Nelson Mandela Bay roads are about to be stopped in their tracks.

A joint emergency services task team has been established to investigate and apprehend the unruly and speeding drivers following a series of complaints.

According to officials, the 10111 emergency call centre receives daily reports from motorists about the behaviour of the drivers.

The task team was formed yesterday during a meeting between police, disaster management, traffic and emergency service officials.

Police officials said complaints received by 10111 included tow trucks racing to accident scenes, weaving in and out of traffic, as well as jumping red traffic lights.

One of the most recent incidents was at the weekend when Precision Tow-in Services and V&R Auto were allegedly racing to a minor accident scene in Circular Drive.

Three cars were damaged due to the tow-truck drivers allegedly speeding and weaving in and out of traffic to get to the scene first.

Two witnesses, one of them police spokeswoman Captain Sandra Janse van Rensburg and the other a former police captain, saw one of the tow trucks veer into oncoming traffic in Circular Drive in an attempt to beat the other to the accident scene. "I was sitting in traffic when one came speeding past straight into oncoming traffic while the other was speeding on the pavement," Janse van Rensburg said.

"While the one tow truck was weaving in between traffic, he scraped three cars which were sitting in the traffic jam. One of the vehicles damaged was mine."

Janse van Rensburg and the ex-police captain drove to the scene and confronted the two drivers.

"They told us they were driving recklessly to get to the scene first," she said. "They chased to the scene with absolutely no regard for other motorists or road users."

Cases of reckless and negligent driving have been opened against both drivers. V&R Auto owner Raven Rungan said he was aware of the incident.

"From what I understood, the other tow truck [allegedly] tried to ride my driver off the road. We do not race to scenes and I have never received a speeding fine linked to my drivers speeding," he said.

Precision Tow-in owner Fabian Roberts declined to comment.

Janse van Rensburg, who was nominated as the task team spokeswoman, said the scope of the work would also include private ambulance services.

"Any of these services whose drivers race to scenes with no regard for other motorists' safety will be dealt with criminally," she said.

The municipality's high-tech CCTV control room will also be used to monitor and film culprits for evidence.

Janse van Rensburg promised a "zero-tolerance approach".

A senior police official, who did not want to be named, said: "Some officers have even chased these tow-truck drivers from accident scenes as they have moved the vehicles involved in culpable homicides where someone has died.

"This equates to tampering with evidence."

Last month, the Nelson Mandela Bay safety and security portfolio committee heard that cases involving speeding tow-truck drivers had been reinstated after it was revealed that prosecutors continuously withdrew them.

This forms part of the metro's plan to bring to book drivers and vehicle owners who are racking up hundreds of rands' worth of unpaid speeding fines.

Traffic chief Hamilton Totoyi said at the meeting his department aimed to clamp down on the breakdown service providers.

In 2012, two schoolgirls were injured when the vehicle they were travelling in rolled after allegedly being rear-ended by a tow truck in Kabega Park.

In March, a man was killed and another seriously injured when a tow truck crashed into them while they were running across Uitenhage Road near Algoa Park.

Police are investigating a case of culpable homicide. - Gareth Wilson