Why turn a blind eye to this danger?

For months, Jacob Roberts has driven past the insection at Loop and Delver Streets, where the happy voices of children ring out on the playground of the Dome Primary School.

But as a father of four, the concern kept gnawing at him daily about the danger of the intersection with no stop signs or clear road markings anymore.

One of the stop signs has been lying on the pavement for over six months.
The other has disappeared. Yet, after all this time, no one has bothered to pick up the sign from the sidewalk near the school fence.

That was until Wednesday, 4 January, when Jacob decided – enough is enough. He replanted the stop sign himself.

“I have noticed cars do not stop at this intersection, which could cause a serious accident, let alone the danger for schoolchildren crossing the road here,” he says.

“It is the municipality’s responsibility to keep the town’s roads safe, but people must start doing something instead of turning a blind eye to what is wrong.
“I am just a normal, working citizen who grew up in Parys and bought a house here in 2015. Driving past the school on my way to Sasol daily, I could simply no longer ignore the danger without doing something. Neither the municipality nor anyone else has bothered to do anything, never mind fix the road.”

It took him only twenty minutes to replant the sign.

* In 2020, Marné Prinsloo, a former learner of Parys High, was seriously injured in a car accident at the intersection of Unie and Kort Streets. Both stop signs were missing, but have since been replaced.