This morning on the way out to work we noticed that our garage door was slightly ajar. And that both my bikes (BMX and downhill MTB) had been stolen. Nothing else, just the bikes. Power tools, clothes, golf clubs – all still there. Guess they just wanted stuff they could get away with quickly. I also suppose that is why they left the unicycle. Irritating, but at least it was contained to “outside” of the house and it wasn’t anything I couldn’t live without. On a side note, since this is the second time we’ve had a garage broken into and my two bikes stolen, I suspect this is the universe’s way of telling me not to go mountain biking.
Anyways, rather than hanging about the house waiting for the police to rock up and take a statement, I went to them. Polite and efficient. Got the details and off I went with my case number. The real kicker though was when 15 minutes later I got an SMS confirming my case number.
Note: case number obscured to protect the paranoid.
Two things from this that made me happy:
- they capture case details electronically
- they captured my cellphone number correctly
All we usually hear is the negative about SAPS and their inefficiencies. So much so that I am surprised and delighted with such simple things as a pleasant experience and an electronic follow-up.
This was short-lived, because driving into town I was behind a traffic officer. Working next door to the traffic department means I often have the opportunity to observe how well they adhere to the laws that they are employed to uphold. Now something that’s always annoyed the crap out of me in traffic, and something that I thought was not only the right thing to do, but also the law, is that you do not enter an intersection until there is space on the other side to move out. Basically, don’t drive into and block an intersection. Buitengracht out of town in the afternoon is a great place to see this – bumper to bumper traffic right across Somerset road, so when the lights go green, everyone just sits and waits. It doesn’t take a whole lot of planning ahead to see that the traffic on the other side of the intersection has stopped. Same goes for the entrance to the Waterfront in the mornings.
Note the red light. And the cars trying to go around the traffic officer. Who is currently blocking the free flow of traffic. Awesome.
I’ve had mixed interactions with the cops here in SA and I can’t figure it out. Sometimes they border on the outrageously efficient – like the time I thought somebody was breaking in upstairs from my apartment and after a brief emergency call it seemed like a whole navy seal team wanted access to my flat. Seriously overboard.
Then you get my brother who gets mugged walking home from the gym in Claremont and decides to fight off the would be muggers. Cops arrive and arrest everyone, including my brother, who has a hard time convincing a very uninterested cop that he was just trying to get home.
I suppose we have to deal with both cases with a fair dose of amusement. Maybe its time to keep the bikes under the bed?
Ha! Bastards!
Glad to hear about the efficiency.
Sad to see the shift from a “law-enforcement & crime-prevention” agency, to a “crime-recording & insurance-administration” agency.
And. they don’t even do house-calls anymore.
atleast you have the unicycle