fFIRST HELP TOWING BAD SERVICE

I have in the last 2 years been forewarned by many friends and relatives not to make use of First Help in case of a motor accident. I took this with a pinch of salt until personal experience on Monday 07 November 2022 taught me otherwise. To help my daughter, I drive in the early mornings my grandchildren to school. At 07:00 on Monday 07 November 2022, I came upon an accident scene on the corner of Rooihuiskraal Road and Overberg Avenue, The Reeds. One of the vehicles towed by a First Help tow truck was blocking half of the lane in Overberg Ave in Rooihuiskraal Road, in such a way that I, coming in Overberg, could not see oncoming traffic from my left. Trying to move forward I nearly collided with a vehicle coming from my left cutting the corner into Overberg. In distress I opened the left front passenger window and asked in Afrikaans: “Kan iemand asseblief die verkeer reë!”. Expecting traffic noise and not knowing whether the people at the accident scene could hear me and due to the stress, I had raised my voice which unfortunately can by quite load – even at my age of 71 years. This reacted into the following answer yelled to me with a young voice from the First Help member: “Nee, jy hoef nie op ons te skreeu nie. Jy, ou toppie, behoort beter te weet. Jy het ‘n klein dogtertjie by jou, jy moet ‘n voorbeeld vir haar wees.” My granddaughter, 9 years old, tried to show him to zip his lips but he just carried on “Jy is wit. Jy moet beter weet.” I rep**** “Maar ek het ‘asseblief’ gevra”, which just had further reaction from him. My granddaughter responded when we drove away “Ongeskikte buffel, ons kon in ‘n ongeluk gewees het.” The vehicle coming from my left could have slammed into her door injuring or even killing her. Obviously, your member was not interested in assisting in regulating the traffic, making the scene safe, and/or to move his and the towed vehicle further out of the way. Should his lackadaisical attitude, resulted in another accident this would only be to his benefit. The above event is totally contradicting to what I had experienced 5 years ago at another accident scene where I could stop to assist in regulating the traffic. There the First Help member expressed his concern to me so that I was not injured. He had placed emergency cones in a large area around the accident scene to make the accident area safe and to ensure that further accidents do not occur at that scene. I have subsequently requested my insurance company not to allow First Help to assist us in the case of an emergency. I have taken notice of the warnings expressed to me.

Johannes Lynzaad