Pointsmen a little late – and too few

While it is good news that the City of Joburg’s department of public safety has appointed 200 traffic pointsmen to join the Joburg metro police department, why on earth did it take so long?

Load shedding has been with us, in varying degrees, since 2008. And, in those 16 years, there has been regular chaos at controlled intersections when the power goes out.

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There has been no effort to prosecute, or even educate, those Joburg motorists who either ignore, or do not know the rules of the road for how to behave at such intersections. (Hint: they’re four-way stops…)

Also, heaven forbid that our over-bribed traffic cops should take time out from their busy schedule, writing tickets or soliciting “cool drinks”, to direct traffic and actually contribute to the safety of the public which pays their salaries.

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That’s why we have the bizarre – and potentially hugely dangerous – situation where unemployed and untrained people take it upon themselves to try to earn some coins by doing the job of the traffic cops.

There is potential for those people to be incorporated into the system, paid and trained and used – because those 200 new pointspeople will not go nearly far enough to alleviate traffic jams.