Road rage simmers in Chelsea Avenue

LOOKING at the chaos that is Pinetown it is obvious that the municipality has a communication problem.

In the Sarnia area of Pinetown some months ago, the municipality embarked on a project to replace all the pavements with neat and safe sidewalks topped with tar. Sidewalks were also constructed where none had existed previously and the lives of pedestrians became much safer as a result.

But obviously the pavement people did not talk to the roads people because this week the roads people dug up the beautiful new pavements in Stapleton Road because they are resurfacing this road.

Decisions for these projects were surely not made overnight so somewhere on some agenda in some committee someone must have noticed that they were putting the cart before the horse.

Why construct fancy sidewalks knowing that the road was to be resurfaced and the sidewalks were now in the way of this improvement.

There is a suspicion that the various departments of our esteemed municipality do not talk to each other and, no, the pavement people had no idea that the roads people were going to destroy their handiwork a few months down the line.

But the burning question is how much of our hard-earned rates and tax money paid for the crumbled bits of tar now lying on the side of Stapleton Road?

With the Go! Durban bus project in full swing, travelling through Pinetown takes far longer than it once did and nerves are stretched to the extreme as certain members of our society deed it below them to wait in a queue or obey the rules of the road.

With Shepstone Road now a sandpit, little Chelsea Avenue has become the bypass arterial road connecting Clermont and beyond with New Germany and Pinetown.

The problem here is that this lane was never meant to cater for such heavy traffic and hundreds of taxis, each more important than the other and each being exempt from traffic laws and good manners.

What happens where Chelsea Avenue meets the busy Escom Road is that taxi drivers, clever chaps that they are, take the fly off to the left, bypassing all the cars turning right in the designated lane.

From this left only lane they then turn right, cutting across the right turn lane and everybody comes to a standstill or risks a crash. It is simply a matter of time before someone is injured in this game of anarchy.

Even the adjacent supermarket parking and the petrol station forecourt have become hazardous as these too are used as short cuts.

There is one lone pointsman at afternoon rush hour, attempting to control the situation in Escom Road and the bun fight in Chelsea Avenue.

When the municipality planned Go! Durban many months ago surely they realised that Chelsea Avenue and its three-pronged intersection with Escom Road was going to be problematic and that traffic officers, Metro Police working a bit of overtime, were essential at this intersection.

The truth of the matter is that there is no visible police presence in Pinetown and New Germany and motorists are running riot knowing that the likelihood of being fined is almost nil.

Once Go! Durban is complete it is nothing more than wishful thinking that those who have got into the habit of breaking the law with impunity will tow the line.

Pinetown and New Germany roads are very dangerous places at present and there is no indication that there will be any improvement soon.