Hijacking of vehicles, or more correctly, car jacking had its South African beginnings in Soweto in 1976 when, at the height of unrest a group of youths stopped a vehicle at the stop street. At knife point, they demanded the driver hand the vehicle over to them.

The reality of this apparent phenomena did not strike home till it spilled over from the black townships into white suburbs in the early 90’s. By 1991 this had become a daily occurrence with the media reporting this activity daily. Purported to have political overtones this, as post transitional incidents have shown, was in many instances a mask for pure criminal intent.

Car jacking during the intervening period did not enjoy a high profile primarily because of the following factors;

• Occurring mostly in the townships the vehicles hijacked were in most instances not insured. This therefore did not have a direct impact on the profitability of insurance companies.
• The attitude of Law enforcement at stations that would handle reports of car jacking were generally unsympathetic to the plight of the victim. This distorted any statistics that were being collated.

When the impact was directly felt by insurers and "privileged" individuals, law enforcement was compelled to take action. This has been evident in special task teams specially set up to handle these occurrences.

These incidents need to be seen in the context of what steps had been taken by insurers to protect the products they were insuring. Due to dramatic increase in vehicle theft it had become mandatory to fit anti-theft devices. Their effectiveness directly contributed to the increase in hijacking.

As a direct result of these obligatory requirements car jacking increased - this in turn caused insurers to stipulate owners fit "anti hijacking devices".

This in turn has resulted in the taking of hostages, with the inevitable consequences of victim trauma.

While it is not known (statistically) what portion of hijackings have resulted in victims either being raped or murdered the perpetrators pre-disposition toward use of violence should be considered as a major factor in the decision to take a proactive approach in preventing an occurrence.

Top of the Page