Durban - There were mixed reactions to a video shared on social media showing a municipal worker asleep in the driver's seat of a council car at a red robot.
The issue of contention in the video is the matter of the driver’s sobriety. In the video, the videographer bangs on the car waking the driver up, puts it to her that she is drunk and asleep on the job to which the woman apologises before starting the car and driving off.
Users reacting to the video clashed as some believed there was no proof that the woman had been inebriated, while others felt that the fact that she does not deny it to the videographer when he put that to her, was an admission of the allegation.
In the 30-second video clip, the owner of the phone as he approaches the vehicle captures the municipal registration plate speaking in IsiZulu saying: “Here’s a municipal car, the drivers are a sleep like this, they are drunk spending our government money.”
With both the driver and passenger's windows wide open, the videographer captures the woman with her head tilted back apparently asleep at the robot.
Banging on the door, he wakes the woman: “Sorry, how are you drunk while driving a municipal vehicle, can you see where you are stopped? How are you drunk while driving a municipal car?”
The woman in the video is seen looking out the window checking where she had stopped the car after being woken up by the man, she’s heard apologising saying that she was waiting for people.
Facebook user, Zamo Qwabe, reacting to the video said: “It would be better if those who also produced shoddy work when they got tenders were also videoed like this. In our government it's rotten at all levels, there’s no need to oppress each other on the ground when it's rotten at the top. Do you have any confirmation that she is drunk? She could be a hard worker who fell asleep.”
This was while Londie Nyathi also questioned whether the driver was indeed really drunk saying that she just might have been depressed and taking a video just might have made it worse.
Sbonga Ntombela argued that “she did not deny that she was drunk, she apologised.”
Sanelisiwe Ngcobo said: “The day you have a loved one involved in a car crash and they are injured or die you will understand that a drunk person should not go anywhere near a vehicle. You will never understand until it happens to you.”
Municipal spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela said that the matter was of the woman allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol is receiving attention.
“And in the event of conclusive evidence to the effect that the driver was inebriated, the city shall not hesitate to act as it is against its vehicles being driven under the influence of liquor.”
Daily News