Luke Verburgt was being followed by a taxi driver on the N4 towards Pretoria; he prepared himself for evasive driving but realized the driver was trying to help him!
Johannesburg, South Africa (05 July 2021) – Luke Verburgt and his friend Alexander were driving along the N4 towards Pretoria when a taxi drove up right next to them and started behaving erratically. Luke quickly enabled his evasive driving skills. He saw the driver waving his hand towards them, and as he looked closely, he saw his house keys in the driver’s hand.
The entire situation shifted, and Luke pulled over to meet the taxi driver, who restored his faith in humanity.
“How amazing. Today, while Alexander and I are on the N4 highway going into PTA, a minibus taxi swerves close to me and the driver gesticulates wildly at me out of his open window. Instant rage. Curse-words bubbling up. Evasive driving plans engaging… And then I see it…
He’s waving my set of house keys in his hand! What the hell? He’s waving them and trying to ask me if they’re mine and I acknowledge. I follow him and he pulls off the road and he explains what happened and I report, with some gaps filled in that I learnt after the fact.”
It turns out that Luke’s wife had placed the keys on the back of the car while she was playing outside with their daughter. Unaware of this, Luke got in the car and drove off.
“Ursula had put our house key set on the boot of our car while playing outside with Luna. I got in the car without seeing them and drove off but they stayed there while I was driving slowly in my neighbourhood. When I exited Wapadrand and turned the corner at the traffic light (c/o Wapadrand and Lynnwood), the keys fell off and this taxi driver (there’s a mini taxi rank there) spotted them, rushed to pick them up and then tried to follow me to give them back.”
Luke had been on the highway for some time when the taxi driver caught up with him.
“Apparently he got cut off by a traffic light but saw that I had headed onto the highway and so he followed and caught up to me over 10 km later. Just him in his taxi, no passengers.”
This story is one to be celebrated, and the driver commended for going out of his way to help a fellow South African. We all know the dread of losing something that is important to us. Luke had his faith in humanity restored this day!
“He saved me a huge amount of trouble. How incredibly nice to be reminded that there are still good people out there and that they can pop up from some of the most unexpected sectors in our society.”