EDITOR – Your article Red lines keep patrons away (23 August) refers.
The arrival a few years ago of Bakers DIY, Glenwood Bakery and Parc businesses to the decades-long malfunctioning Oslo Court was a most welcome boon to our Glenwood community. My wife and I are occasional patrons of all three and enjoy their quality service and neighbourly convenience. However, their understandable popularity has created an equally understandable challenge for the traffic authorities to manage the heavy influx of vehicles in a congested and really unsafe traffic environment.
I have lived in Evans Road since the late 40s and have the sad knowledge of an accident virtually happening once a month (some slight, others major) for the past 70 years at the two intersections within spitting distance of Oslo Court. Esther Roberts Road has two critical features which accentuate the hazards of driving along it. The first is the “Devil’s Dip” on the south side of the Deodar Ave intersection, which clearly encourages many speedy and reckless drivers to be even more so and race through the two intersections when approaching Oslo Court.
The second – and the most hazardous – is the severe blind rise in the road at the Ayott Avenue intersection. What this means is that cars travelling north from Devil’s Dip up to this intersection cannot see cars driving south (from Willowvale) up to the same intersection, and vice versa! Their sighting of one another is completely impeded by the blind rise until they are within 30 or so metres of each other at this rise. Should they be racing, the accident profile of both intersections becomes exponentially increased. How many such drivers notice the flashing amber traffic signs on either side of the blind rise warning of the obscured intersections ahead?
After 50 years of driving in the area, I have been avoiding these two intersections primarily because, in trying to cross them, I could no longer clearly see the cars approaching from the north or south along Esther Roberts. And why? Oslo Court business patrons had parked their cars along all road sides and in so doing were obstructing critical vision of the oncoming traffic in both directions.
This is why, as a long-time resident in the area well aware of the hazards and numerous accidents happening at these intersections, I welcomed the infamous red traffic lines painted along a number of road sides. Apart from the lines along the two rising sides of the triangular island (which I agree are excessive), the red lines along Esther Roberts serve to enhance a clear vision of all cars travelling along it from both north and south. Loss of parking? There is an abundance of parking along Esther Roberts. That patrons have to walk (maybe 40m) to enjoy some of the best of Durban’s culinary delights, should hardly be a bothersome matter but rather a chance to work up an appetite of happy anticipation.
A few months back I witnessed a near fatal accident involving a young child just outside Parc bakery on the famous blind rise. God forbid that a fatality should happen in this area because the out-of-area inconvenienced few clamoured for the removal of these lines along Esther Roberts. Let civic-minded, public-spirited and safety-conscious voices matter more than the self-satisfying silliness of sniffling slighters of sanity!
The Red Lion
Glenwood
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