Furore over woman ‘endangering’ child defused
It was an emotional reaction, says driver.
On 22 August a GoPro-recorded video of a woman driving through a red traffic light while talking on her cellphone went viral on facebook. Her son was with her in the vehicle.
The post that was shared more than 600 times had users of this platform as well as other sites up in arms with some making extremely nasty threats.
In the video the woman and her son can be seen in the vehicle as she drives through the intersection of JG Strijdom Road and Ninth Avenue after the traffic light had turned red. What caused the outrage is that the vehicle is branded with the particulars of the nursery school of which she is the principal.
The record decided not to make the woman’s name public after hearing her and her husband’s emotive explanation.
According to her she was already in the intersection when the traffic light turned red, which the video unfortunately does not show. She says she had no choice but to continue or be stuck in the way of oncoming vehicles.
She also says that she never talks on her cellphone while driving and that it usually is in the cradle of the hands-free system. When the call came through on the day though, she realised that the caller had disturbing news about a close family member. Because she wanted to spare her young son the bad news she took the call.
Over the weekend her husband also responded, showing real remorse and explaining that his wife was highly traumatised after hearing the bad news about the close family member.
“We admit that she should not have taken the call but we do feel that no one is perfect. Even the most law-abiding citizen would have reacted in the same way when hearing such tragic news,” says the husband.
“The positive of this is that our imperfection as human beings once again came to the fore. It also did a great deal for making the public aware of these problems relating to road safety. This showed that a large part of the community really still cares about the law and the safety of others. We would be grateful if the public could take this away from the incident,” the husband concludes.
