Cape Town - The dangers of illegal spinning have come under the spotlight again after a spectator was hit during a well-known, illegal event in Heideveld.
A video of the incident, which has since gone viral on social media, was captured on Sunday at the event near the Heideveld train station.
A male spectator in the video dressed in white, who is in pure jubilation, tries to imitate the vehicle’s movements as it glides around the tar pitch.
However, as the vehicle swerves from side to side, with one sharp turn, the spectator is knocked face-first to the ground after being caught by the back of the vehicle as he tries to move out of the way.
Ward councillor, Anthony Moses, said the event went quiet for some time until Sunday’s incident.
Although the incident was not reported to the police, it has once again brought attention to how dangerous illegal spinning events that have been popping up throughout the city are.
Safety and security mayco member, JP Smith, said not just spinning, but all illegal events were a concern.
“Certainly the spinning events are amongst those because of the risk of injury to public participants and the extent to which they come in hand with antisocial behaviour and other stuff,” he said.
Smith said acting on illegal events required a lot of resources.
“When you show up with two or four vehicles and you are dealing with a crowd of 400 or 800 people, the crowd gets violent.
“They smash up your cars and injure your officers. You have to commit a lot of resources for this,” Smith said.
Spinning involves driving cars at speed in circles.
Jonathan Schaffers of Supporting People In Need (SPIN) said there is no support from local governments, therefore illegal spinning events occur.
“When they relocated and reshifted the event to Killarney, that is when the guys took it into their own hands to do it on any space, unsafe, which we don’t condone.
“But without the proper support from the government, it's not going to stop. It's the same as racing,” he said.
Schaffers said spinning used to be safe and structured when it was at the “Hills” in Lentegeur.
“When that was taken away it created so many other avenues for the people doing it on the street and putting people’s lives at risk,” Schaffers said.
The Lentegeur “Hills” was granted permission to operate under the City but members of the public raised concerns about it.
Grand Master DJ Ready D, who is also a motorsport enthusiast, said the video proved the sport was extremely dangerous.
“If you want the event in the community, the people that are attending and those responsible for making it happen should figure out a safe way to do it,” he said.
“The sport definitely gets people excited and unfortunately if you get close to the cars it's just a matter of time before something happens.”
Cape Argus