Residents on Albert Street in Weltevreden Park have had to contend with numerous road accidents along the curve of the road.
Jennifer Tolmay, who lives right where the road curves, shared that they had just fixed their wall after a car had crashed into it. “It’s a 40km zone but people drive here like it’s a race track. We got the JRA involved through our Panorama Residents Association and JRA said they would extend the barrier, but they didn’t have the manpower.”
She said extending the barrier might lessen the impact, “… but the cars can still crash into a wall, or flip. That’s our biggest concern at the moment. We are fighting this as a street, as it does not affect only one property,” she added.
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On Friday October 22, a driver lost control of his vehicle. It spun before coming to a stop in the shrubbery outside Tolmay’s neighbour’s house. “You can still see the tyre marks on the road. He went straight in and hit the plants – thankfully he did not go through her wall. We bought the house last year in September and everybody kept telling us ‘wait for it’. We didn’t believe them until it happened.”
She shared that just a week after they started repairs on her wall, a car came around the corner and went through another house’s wall. ”A driver went through the property next door to me and drove straight into their parked cars. Two weeks back a food delivery driver came around the corner and slid on the road,” she added.
Tolmay has tried to get JRA to put up proper speed-limit signage or speed bumps of some sort to caution motorists. She said many drivers didn’t realise they were approaching a curve in the road because the street lights also don’t work. “Somebody is going to get badly hurt. There are crèches in the area and a church just down the road. It feels like we are fighting a fruitless battle with JRA. Are they going to wait for something catastrophic to happen?”
The Johannesburg Road Agency did not respond to question sent by Northsider.
