SOUTH AFRICA:South African motorists are getting their revenge on ill-mannered taxi drivers - spray-painting and smashing up their mini-cabs in a mass show of road rage.
Golf clubs and screwdrivers are being made freely available to the public to carry out the damage, for which no one is being punished.
The vandalism, it should be stressed, is only occurring on the internet - specifically at a newly established, animated website. But that hasn't stopped South Africa's national taxi union from complaining.
Responding to news that the site (www.ilogic.co.za/taxi-wars.html) received more than 70,000 visits in a 24-hour period, the union is threatening to complain to South Africa's Human Rights Commission about alleged racism and incitement to violence.
Behind the somewhat farcical spat is a more serious issue - that of driver behaviour in South Africa.
The country's taxi drivers are famed for their erratic and frequently reckless manoeuvring on the roads but they are by no means the only motorists guilty of dangerous habits. Drunk-driving remains commonplace, and every few weeks some public figure gets caught doing twice the speed limit - and is typically let off with a fine.
With concern growing about the rising cost of road fatalities, the South African government is finally waking up to the issue.
Throwing his weight behind an international road safety campaign this week, transport minister Jeff Radebe said traffic collisions were costing the South African economy 43 billion rand (€4.5 billion) annually.
He pointed out that awareness of road safety issues was low in South Africa, and promised new measures, including beefed-up law enforcement.
Mr Radebe faces an uphill struggle, however, in a country with a myriad of other public health problems. But the need for state intervention in the area has been underlined by new figures from the World Health Organisation, showing road collisions are due to overtake HIV/Aids by 2015 as the main cause of death and disability in children aged five to 14 in developing countries.
The organisation notes that road fatalities are fuelling poverty by claiming the lives of family breadwinners. People disabled in collisions are said to be a further drain on resources.
Africa has the most dangerous road network in the world with 28.3 road deaths for every 100,000 people. This compares with 8.4 deaths per 100,000 in Ireland.
Over the Easter weekend alone, 276 people were killed on South African roads - an increase of 19 on the same period in 2006, and the rough equivalent of a crashed passenger jet.