archive of legends & netlore
The Hijackers' Misfortune
As told by Howard Stafford of South Africa, 07/27/00...
Johannesburg, South Africa is well known to be the vehicle hijack capital
of
the world. Small wonder then that a number of urban legends have grown up
around this phenomenon. Hijackers operate in the city, the suburbs and
the
rural areas.
This particular legend is about a woman driving home to her
smallholding at dusk. While she is travelling down a dirt road in her 4X4
pick-up truck she sees a "body" lying in the middle of the road. Given
that
she is on a dark, deserted road she understandably feels nervous and
suspects that the "body" may be a decoy to get her to stop
the
vehicle.
She decides that she is not going to stop for anything but also
realises that she cannot ride over the body in the road. Without slowing
down she swings the 4X4 into the long grass at the side of the road and
drives home as fast as she can. When she arrives home she immediately
calls
the police to report the incident.
As luck would have it there is a
police
patrol in the immediate vicinity and within minutes they arrive to escort
the woman to the scene of the alleged ambush. At the scene they find that
the "body" has come back to life. The decoy is trying to help his three
critically-injured accomplices who were hiding in ambush in the long
grass
at the side of the road and who were ridden over by the woman when she
swerved to avoid the decoy.
It goes without saying that the men lying in
ambush were all armed with AK-47 assault rifles....
– Howard Stafford
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More:
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