Speed calming needed desperately, says resident

A RESIDENT living at the intersection of Currie and Gladys Mazibuko (Marriot) Road said something needs to be done urgently to help curb the number of accidents at this intersection.

According to Dino Comignani, there is more than one accident a week at this intersection.

“During January alone we have had 17 accidents. In one weekend we had three accidents on the Saturday and two on the Sunday. There will be a lull of around two months and motorists will get blasé, then there will be another five or six accidents and people will get anxious again. I am a victim of the accidents, as my property has been damaged by cars,” he said.

Dino said he has replaced his boundary wall and gate five times over the past few years.

“My insurance is getting tired of paying to replace the wall. I have asked for barriers to be re-erected outside my property, as they were taken away in the 70s when the road was widened, but the barriers were never replaced. I have written to the the municipality but have been told there are no funds,” he said.

He said he felt accidents were a result of people driving too fast along Currie Road and not being able to see the stop sign.

“The sign used to be surrounded by flashing lights, and this helped. I also feel motorists can't see the markings on the road,” he said.

Dino said 80 per cent of accidents were due to people not stopping at the intersection at all, and 20 per cent of them due to people trying to take a gap to cross the road.

“I feel there need to be speed bumps before the stop street or, even better, robots at the intersection. We did ask the municipality for speed bumps, but two months later there were bumps installed in Haden Road, which is a quiet lane. It is frightening the number of people injured in accidents at this intersection. Even the police say something needs to be done. When I go away on holiday, unlike other people who worry about burglaries, I worry about someone driving through my wall and no one being at home,” he said.

Ward councillor, Martin Meyer, said he had contacted the municipality and alerted them to the fact there had been a huge increase in accidents at this intersection. “There seem to be a number of reasons for this. One is that the intersection is at an angle, as most Currie Road intersections are. The other is that the stop street coming from the north towards the south (which is where most of the accidents happen) is partly obscured. I asked if engineering could have a look at the road markings that are currently a bit faded, and if the parks department could cut the trees that are obscuring the stop sign, and if eThekwini Transport Authority (eTA) could investigate options to make the intersection safer, such as installing a speed hump before the stop street,” he said.

Carlos Esteves from eTA said: “In any event such requests are all assessed in terms of the council's traffic calming policy. In terms of the intersection of Currie and Marriot we have checked the records, which include all accident reports and the total to date for 2014, up to and including November, is less than the stated 17. I cannot comment on the number for January, as the month is not complete and we would only accumulate the reports after month end, but given the average annual for this intersection being less than 17, it would be unusual if there had been 17 in January alone. We are tracking this location and await the January records to seek to identify what could have caused so many accidents.”