Nigel Dewhurst of Ballito writes:
Has anyone else noticed the sudden increase in roadblocks in and around Ballito over the festive season?
While this is welcomed, the question has to be asked where the multitude of metro police who were in attendance at these roadblocks are during the rest of the year?
It is all well and good to pull mostly law abiding motorists off the road and check driver and vehicle licences, but I suggest efforts would be far better employed by simply being in attendance near the taxi rank opposite The Junction.
I travel past the rank daily on my way to and from work, and have not seen one traffic officer in this vicinity the entire year, except to occasionally direct traffic when the traffic lights are not working.
Taxis continually break the law by going through red robots, travelling in the emergency lanes and aggressively forcing other road users to give way.
They are a law unto themselves and endanger innocent lives. I personally know of one cyclist who has been permanently maimed by a hit-and-run taxi early one morning close to The Junction.
But of course, taxis are the hard targets. The traffic cops’ bias towards the soft targets at this time of year simply fuels speculation that they collect bribes at roadblocks, and that the taxis are untouchable.
Is this perhaps because traffic cops are terrified of taxi bosses, or even receive bribes from them not to target their taxis?
Whatever the reasons, road users, who are taxpayers, pay the salaries of the metro police and demand they do the job they are employed to do without fear or favour.
We demand greater visibility by metro police throughout the year at known traffic infringement intersections, and not just at roadblocks over the festive season.
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