'Traffic officers gave my details to flirting petrol attendants'

A KwaZulu-Natal woman claims Road Traffic Inspectorate officials looked up her personal details and gave them to two petrol attendants flirting with her in Empangeni‚ against her will.

The police brushed off the allegation and have declared she was "just seeking attention".

Lindi Fortmann posted details of her angry exchange with two officers seated in an official vehicle outside the Engen garage on the N2 near Empangeni on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast‚ together with a video‚ on Facebook on Sunday.

Fortmann said one of the RTI officials had allegedly used software in his marked traffic patrol car to obtain her personal details using her car’s registration number. This information‚ she claims‚ was given to a petrol attendant and his colleague.

“I could hear that him [a petrol attendant] and another petrol attendant were talking about me. I tried to ignore them but they continued. My petrol attendant was telling him to look at his own customers and stop looking at me‚” she wrote.

“A cop car had parked at the pump next to mine and this bad behaviour continued. The cop witnessed it and decided to help the men out by showing them my information on the screen inside the government car.

“The petrol attendants were called by the police traffic officer and they both put their heads through the passenger’s window to view my information.

“The petrol attendant who was assisting me called me by my surname. The petrol attendant assisting me kept on calling me by name at this point and saying my initials out loud and mentioning my year of birth‚” she wrote.

In her post Fortmann‚ who didn't respond immediately to queries‚ said she felt "violated and stripped naked" by the official's disclosure of her personal information to the petrol attendants.

In the video she is seen approaching the vehicle‚ in which two officers are seated with their windows closed. She asks them repeatedly to open the vehicle and they only do so when a man‚ believed to be the garage manager‚ asks them to do so.

Fortmann asks the male officer in the passenger seat why he disclosed her details to complete strangers‚ swearing that what he had done was an invasion of her privacy and he had no right to give out her details. The officer‚ who is not clearly visible in the video‚ said that he was insulted by her language‚ which made her more angry.

She told him that she would report him and that he would "get what is coming to you" adding that her brother is a magistrate and lawyer.

RTI spokesperson Zinhle Mngomezulu said that the woman was “looking for attention” and had not followed the proper channels when laying a complaint.

Mngomezulu said that no official complaint had been registered and as such‚ they were not bound to investigate the conduct of the officer.

“We can’t investigate something that is posted on Facebook. There is a grievance procedure. She should write a letter to the station commander and bring this to our attention‚” she said. “That is the only way to go about it‚ not put it on Facebook. They [the officers] have a case against her as well. She was swearing at them.”

“She wanted to show off and get attention on social media‚” Mngomezulu added.