By: Dave Abrahams
It used to be called the snowball effect, but these days the popular buzzword is "tipping point" - that moment when a small initiative by a dedicated group of activists suddenly picks up its own momentum and becomes a movement.
For Amanda Bruwer and the founders of Bikers Against e-Tolls in the Western Cape, that moment happened on Sunday morning, when close to 1000 riders gathered on the Grand Parade for Cape Town's sixth BAT protest ride.
The issues at stake have become part of mainstream biker culture. Even if Bruwer never organises another protest ride, from now on there will always be motorcycles (and cars and bakkies) out there sporting the BAT logo and the brilliantly simple slogan "Proudly e-tag Free".
HUGE NUMBERS
With the number of riders jumping threefold from one BAT run to the next, the handful of police officers on hand looked a bit worried. But it's a matter of record that, despite bikers' fearsome reputation, there has never been an instance of public violence at a BAT event.
Cape Town traffic officers escorted the bikes smoothly out of the central city on to the N2, the R300 and the N1, to Dukes of Hazzard in Montague Gardens, where a fundraiser was held for Bondi Rossouw, a biker who has muscular dystrophy.
Afterwards, Bruwer said Cape Town motorists would be ready when the SA National Roads Agency came to erect their