NDUMISO NGCOBO

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Please let me know if this has ever happened to you. You are at your own version of the intersection of Williams and Grove End roads in Beyers Park, Boksburg. A vehicle coming from Grove End is trying to join Williams. Because one of your own pet peeves is waiting for a vehicle approaching from the side to pass, only for the doofus to signal he is turning into your street, wasting 20 seconds of your life, I start indicating that I am turning into Grove End when I am 600m away from it.

But the car waiting to join Williams does not move until I start turning into Grove End. At this point, the driver, a biological doll wearing hideous makeup, removes her purple vape from her mouth just to spit out two words that rhyme with “love you”. To say I was incensed is an understatement. I yelled out the window, “But what did I do wrong?” My blood pressure spiked on the spot.

How many people out there are wired like me? My sanctimonious nature manifests whenever there is a near miss on the road. At these times, people of my persuasion desperately wish there was a video assistant referee (VAR) system on our roads. We yearn for the chance to stand around a replay monitor and watch what transpired, phones at the ready to Google the K53 rulebook. I would happily pay an extra R100 in tax if it meant I could gain footage of my interaction with Purple Haze Vapezilla and a VAR court could be set up for me to prove she was at fault for not having noticed I had been indicating all along.

Many of us are plagued by anxiety about how AI is going to negatively affect us in the future. However, at the same time most of us have a list of fantasies about all the possible cool stuff AI could bring in the years to come.

The universal traffic dispute VAR system is high up in that ranking. How often have you been stuck behind someone on TikTok when that little green traffic-light arrow starts flashing? You politely hoot, but they wait until the arrow turns amber — at which point they squeeze through before it disappears, leaving you with steam coming out of your ears. How cool would it be if you could just press a VAR button inside your car and at the next traffic light the incident was replayed on a large screen, so that you could ask the pain in your proverbial behind, “What the hell is wrong with you?” Instant justice.

Most of us have a list of fantasies about all the possible cool stuff AI could bring in the years to come

Long-time Facebook friend Simon McClelland-Williamson is a South African who lives and works in Trumpvania. He shared an anecdote about how he was stuck in morning traffic the other day: “It is 90 minutes to work. I am in the passing lane during one of the few periods of movement, and this … let’s say orifice … is chatting away on her phone, oblivious to 100,000 people backed up behind her. My moer meter is rising quickly, and then I realise this woman is self-employed because she has her business name and phone number on her back windscreen.”

I will stop this story here to allow your imagination to finish it. But how sweet it would be if we all got the chance to tell those who hog the far-right lane while crawling along at 90km/h just how they’re putting the rest of us in danger from aggressive drivers coming up from behind?

I am currently busy teaching three young people how to drive, and I freely concede I have a “do as I say, not as I do” attitude when instructing them. I will be sharing this column with my children as an example of precisely the wrong attitude to have on the road. A holier-than-thou approach to other people’s driving has never been helpful.

Folks commit unforgivable mistakes on the road all the time, and so do I. Do you do too? I can count two incidents in the last year where careless mistakes I made while driving almost caused life-changing disasters. In both cases, all our lives were spared by the other motorists’ quick thinking and the right attitude.

But I still insist Purple Vape was in the wrong. I was indicating all along. Or was I?