Driving to Church for a District Council meeting last evening, I was highly amused. At the eSikhawini/University turn off, someone has erected traffic calming speed humps. These were so rough that they brought the traffic speed to practically crawling speed.
Someone has decided that they were too much of a bump, so the authorities have tried to make them less of a sharp blockage on the road, by filling in the face in and out, making them more easy to pass! This has been done twice - to the same bumps - but the speed limit of 30 km/h is still way too fast! Tou come over the hill at 100, and if the road is busy, there are cars blocking the entire road weaving drunkenly from side to side!
They have even tried removing the centre of 3 bumps, making a hash of it! You now climb over one bump, dip through a trench where one used to (a week ago) exist, then over another bump! Sure they have calmed the traffic, but they have also created a far worse traffic hazard. There are signs of where some traffic has completely avoided the bumps, by creating a dirt track through the surrounding scrub. This is not great - the tarred roads are being ignored to create dirt roads!
I was aslo highly amused when driving from Blood River to Newcastle - en route either to or from Johannesburg, there was a traffic sign warning "No surface markings!" - really funny thing was that the road surface was missing entirely, as it had been dug up, ready to be retarred. It seems that even if it is nailed down, it is in danger of being stolen! Strikes me that not a whole lot of thought is put into road maintenance! They make bumps to calm the speed, then dig them up a month later leaving a ditch!
Then they leave surfaces to deteriorate completely, whilst wasteing money on creating speed humps that ARE going to be retarred - or dug up - a month later! In Port Durnford (5 kilometers away) the road that runs past the chapel there, is little more than a string of severe potholes, held together by a lacework of tarmac! Instead of repairing this road, the provincial authorities choose to create disgusting speed calming bumps elsewhere, and then dig some out, leaving rubble and a trench, or to smoothe over the bumps, to increase the traffic speed that they were trying to calm!
I understand that the new portable chapel for Port Durnford has arrived on SA soil. Funny thing is that where it is going to be sited, is a dirt road behind the existing pre-fabricated building. Dirt is easier to maintain than tarmac surfaces.
Amazing thing is that if you stick to the speed limit, the traffic anywhere, gets so upset with you that they tear past at goodness knows what speed, mouthing obscenties at you because you are law abiding!
Last week, I received a speed fine through the post for exceeding the limit by 1 km/h, but if I am going this slow, NO-ONE sticks behind me! Amazing thought is "How many of these speed fiends pay their fines? I understand very few!
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