Couple chases car thieves
"At one stage we nearly pushed the suspects off the road but they managed to evade us"
MBOMBELA – After her vehicle was nearly stolen, a woman and her husband went on a car chase in an attempt to track down the prospective vehicle thief.
Geneveve Jonker (40) told Lowvelder more about her adrenalin-filled Monday. She drove to the well-known Hall & Sons fuel station on the N4, where she is doing contract work. “I am a health-and-safety officer for a civil-construction company,” she said. As someone tasked with overseeing the safety of others, the last thing she expected was landing in danger herself.
When she had parked her Toyota Fortuner, Geneveve noticed a man standing very close to her. “This alerted me, and I double-checked that the car had indeed been locked,” she recalled. Her husband, Sean (43), had already left the vehicle and she walked towards him and other construction workers. A TLB driver who works with Geneveve suddenly honked the horn. “He yelled, ‘They are trying to steal your car!'” said Geneveve.
She looked in the direction of her vehicle. The man was leaning against it. Geneveve and Sean ran towards him, but he jumped into a gold Polo and the driver sped off. Without thinking twice, the Jonkers got into their Fortuner and gave chase. “They turned right towards the stadium and turned around at the circle when they noticed we were chasing them,” she told Lowvelder.
They followed the car, which went back towards the fuel station and turned right on the N4 towards the city. “We kept following them. At one stage we nearly pushed them off the road but they managed to evade us,” she said. The Polo turned right into Graniet Road towards ilanga Mall. “It drove on the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic!” she said.
Not wanting to cause havoc, the Jonkers stopped and called Divergent Ops. “They responded immediately,” said Jonker. According to Jacques Meiring of Divergent Ops, security officials are keeping an eye out for the vehicle. He believes that the Polo may have been used for criminal activity in the past. The police were informed of the incident and are investigating the matter.
