While truck owners dream to see the end to the burning of their trucks on the N3, the attackers have deviced another way to actually cause more harm and effectively make sure they achieve their goal.
Stop the truck at all costs, loot and burn, that’s their mission.
In the process they don’t care how much damage they cause to the trucking industry, families of the drivers and ultimately the economy of the country.
ATDF
While the torching of trucks have initially been suspected to have been started by All Truck Drivers Foundation (ATDF), the pattern however, has changed and points to criminal elements bent on reaping were they didn’t sow.
ATDF has been urging the government to act against illegal immigrants who are according to them taking away jobs mearnt for locals.
ATDF leader, Sipho Zungu, has however denied that his organization instructed its members to burn trucks.
They claim that the local trucking industry has been taken over by mainly illegal foreign drivers.
New trick
SA Trucker spoke to the driver who got attacked in the early hours of the morning who narrated how the attackers successfully carried out their evil plot.
“I was driving towards the Tweedie interchange on N3 coming from Durban side when I noticed something on the road, when I flashed my lights to enhance my sight, simultaneously a fire ball engulfed the whole roadway. Knowing what happened over the weekend at the same spot I realised I had been targetted,” he said.
“I abruptly stopped the truck and ran away with my life,” added the driver whose name SA Trucker has but will not release at this stage.
After abandoning the truck the attackers pounced and looted whatever they could including the fridge mechanism for the reefer he was loaded with.
In what has become their signature move the thugs burnt the truck, destroying it completely.
He suspects the attackers sprinkled petrol onto the tyres and lit them up just when he was approaching.
Recently the attackers have used boulders to block motorists and then pounce.
In other cases they have thrown stones from over pass bridges. A Time Link Cargo truck driver died after he was attacked in that way.
The trucker has urged all SA Truckers to shine their bright lights when they approach hotspots like what this area has become. This according to him would increase the driver’s sight to give him time to spot danger and act accordingly.
He urges truckers to be alert around areas around Tweedie interchange and Mooi River including at all overhead bridges on N3.
