Right, the time has come to voice the other side of the story. We have been persecuted in the court of public opinion. This public opinion has been fueled by false accusations, by lies cooked up to hide a bigger guilt. I did not hear the broadcast on Radio 702 and so this makes it difficult to clear our names against allegations we do not fully comprehend, however this may be resolved soon by a helpful hubber. From what i gather on the hub however we have been accused of the following - 1) Of assaulting the woman 2) Of kicking her car and in doing so damaging it. 3) Of harassing this woman On the first count - this is totally false and beyond my comprehension. On the second - again, totally false, we where too busy trying to avoid being ridden over by this woman to worry about doing this. On the third - perhaps yes, but to a lesser extent than the harassment which she so generously handed out to us. Where the police involved? Yes, directly after handing this women's keys back to her from the relative safety (to a bicycle) that a motor vehicle provides. Will the police do anything? Yes, with the right influence, ofcourse, as we have experienced post incident. When you know a specific detective at a specific police station you will be afforded prompt service and all the benefit of doubt in the world. This is not a figment of my imagination or of our collective ones. The woman told us this, She told us she would seek revenge and use whatever was necessary. You ask why we took her keys away and to that I have a simple answer. To protect ourselves from imminent danger. Ask yourself if you where cycling with friends and your life was threatened beyond a reasonable doubt. What would you do at that very moment? Not 5 minutes later, not 1 minute later, at that very moment. My friends I am not a betting man, I don't gamble with money and I sure as hell will not willingly gamble with my life. We did what was necessary to ensure we protected our right to life. Now you ask yourself what you would have done? Too many people have died on our roads. Don't let yourself become a bleeding victim, gasping for air as eventually your last piece of life runs out onto the pavement. Attached is a report of the incident, this report is now in the hands of the police. Names have obviously been removed of both parties. Description of incident On the 16/10/2008 at approximately 10h30 myself and two other cyclists, a male and a female, were cycling along Albert Road in Weltevreden Park. We turned left onto Lemoendoring Road and cycled up a short rise in the road. Cyclist 1 and 2 were riding next to each other and I was behind them, we were on the far left hand side of the road. A Red VW Citi Golf approached us from the rear and hooted quite aggressively at us. At this time there was another car coming from the opposite direction making any overtaking manoeuvre at this time dangerous. As we all began to move into a single file the Citi golf squeezed between us and the oncoming car. We all put our hands up and shouted to protest this dangerous driving. As we did this the Citi Golf slammed on the brakes in front of us and as the windows where open we could hear the women inside the car shouting profanities at us. As the car had braked suddenly and dangerously in front of us cyclist 1 was now next to the car and proceeded to ask the women what she was doing and why she was endangering all of our lives on the road. She then swerved her car towards him and veered him onto the OPPOSITE side of the road repeatedly. She once again hit the brakes and I then rode up to the side of the car to shout at this women. She then preceded to veer me into the ONCOMING traffic all the while shouting profanities. She then accelerated away and then braked hard to come to a stop about 5 metres away from the robots at the intersection between Jim Fouche and Lemoendoring Roads. I came to a stop about a metre away from her driver's door and she again accelerated and veered her car towards me which knocked me and caused me to lose my balance. I reached into the car, turned the ignition off and took the keys out. I did this as I feared for my life and those of my fellow cyclists. The woman was using her car as a weapon towards us and the only way to pacify this situation was to remove her ability to cause us further harm. Once I had the keys and the car was off we all proceeded to ride away as we did not know if this woman had a firearm or would try to physically assault us. We rode back home and cyclist 1 and I got into my car to drive to the police station to lay a charge. On the way to Fairlands Police Station we drove past the scene of the incident and the woman was still there with two other individuals. I proceeded to hand her keys back to her and explain that we feared for our lives and this is why we took her keys away. She then told me amongst all the profanities that she was a welfare worker and knew important figures in the community and a specific detective at the Honeydew Police Station. She said that she had bruises on her arm and that she would say that we assaulted her and that she would frame us with whatever was necessary to ensure that we got into trouble and paid for our "actions". Cyclist 1 and I then left the scene as there was no use reasoning with this woman as she was out of control and was simply harassing us. We proceeded to the Fairlands Police Station where we gave a report of the incident to the inspector on duty.
