Pretoria - A case of a mysterious VW Golf with “aggressive occupants” said to have struck a motorbike rider, resulting in him having a leg and an arm amputated, ended up with a judge having to decide whether there was actually a vehicle on the scene.
The injured man, Harold Fradsen, instituted a claim against the Road Accident Fund (RAF) in the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg.
His version was that he was struck by a VW Golf with aggressive occupants. The RAF suspected that the claim was fraudulent because Fradsen sought to distance himself from the accident report after discovering it.
The report stated that the driver of the motorbike lost control and hit a barrier along the N4 near Pretoria.
Fradsen incurred such serious injuries during the accident in 2017 that it had resulted in the amputations.
After assessing the claim, the RAF disputed the facts based on the accident report.
Fradsen, the only witness to testify, maintained that the RAF was consequently liable for the injuries he sustained as a result of the alleged negligent driving by the unknown insured driver.
He testified that as he was approaching the toll gate on the N4 Magalies highway, he came across a white VW Golf travelling in the same direction.The occupants of the VW Golf, he said, gestured with their hands to him, signalling that his back tyre was flat.
Fradsen said after signalling back to them that the tyre was fine, the occupants of the vehicle became aggressive. They pointed out to him that he should pull over. He accelerated but was unsuccessful in trying to escape.
He was knocked unconscious by the vehicle and thus crashed into the concrete barrier, he said.
The court noted that Fradsen presented no evidence to corroborate his version. He sought to support his version, however, by testifying that a year after the incident, he went back to the toll gate and spoke to some employees.
According to him, they told him there was a criminal syndicate in the area which robs motorists of their belongings in a similar manner.
Judge Edwin Molahlehi, however, found this to be hearsay evidence.
In opposing the claim, the RAF avered that the version of Fradsen is unreliable because it is based on two contradictory versions.
The first version is based on the police accident report, which states that he lost control of the motorbike and bumped into the road barriers. The second version is that the he was bumped off the road by the VW Golf.
Judge Molahlehi said, in his view, the most probable version between the two versions is that in the accident report. The judge commented that for more than five years since the accident, Fradsen never challenged it.
He only distanced himself from it on the first day of the hearing and said that his son probably made the report.
The judge said, in dismissing his claim, that the other difficulty with Fradsen’s version is that he does not provide any reason as to why it was not possible to call any of the people at the toll gate to corroborate his version regarding the VW Golf.
Pretoria News