DEAR Editor,-
Have goodness, decency and honesty all but vanished from the new South Africa or am I being overly pessimistic? You be the judge in this simple scenario.
On Tuesday morning my wife and I had a 9am appointment with a doctor at the Medical Centre in Marine Drive, Margate.
We parked our car in a designated parking bay outside the building and proceeded to our appointment. Parked immediately behind our car was a beige BMW. The registration number (which we subsequently found out later) was NPS 74624.
Having been in the waiting room in the doctor’s surgery for less than 10 minutes, a gentleman came in and asked if anyone owned a Mercedes C240 ‘Elegance’, to which we responded in the affirmative. Thereupon he explained that he had witnessed the BMW drive out of the parking bay immediately behind ours, hitting our car in the process – my wife’s by the way – and then drove off without a second thought although evidently his car was also damaged in the process.
Annoying – absolutely! Inconsiderate – you bet! And equally important, a waste of my time, the insurance company’s time, and most importantly the police’s time who, I must say, were extremely helpful.
The damage to my wife’s car was not in any way catastrophic but the good Samaritan, Dave Kunneke of Just Residential Property Sales definitely deserves an accolade for taking the time and the trouble to report the incident. The driver of the BMW, NPS 74624, deserves something considerably less and should at the very least be named and shamed.
KERRY FIELDEN
