Lakefield residents want traffic calming measures

Negligent driving, speeding and not adhering to the law has culminated in the frustration of Lakefield residents who want the metro to erect speed bumps in the busier streets of the suburb.

A Lakefield resident recently contacted the City Times after an incident, allegedly owed to negligent driving, left his wife “extremely upset and afraid” when she was verbally abused outside their residence.

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According to the resident, his wife was driving home from work when the incident occurred.

“As she entered Killarney Avenue, a man in a white BMW sped up behind her, weaving his car for her to get out of the way,” explained the resident.

“As she slowed down, indicating to turn into our driveway, the driver tried to overtake her, almost crashing into her.

“The driver then proceeded to park her into the driveway and hurled all kinds of obscenities at her and threatened to beat her up amongst other things.

“This happened with our three toddler sons waiting outside for their mom to just come home from work.”

“Killarney Avenue, better known as Killarney race track in Lakefield, has a problem with speeding and negligent drivers,” the resident claimed.

“The process for adding in traffic control measures was declined, twice, by the council with the metro police stating there is no traffic issue.

“The metro police can come check the street on the odd occasion, but we as residents have to live with the daily torment of cars speeding down the road with total disregard for the law.”

The EMPD, however, refutes this claim.

Media liaison officer Kobeli Mokheseng said preliminary investigations in the area revealed no excessive speeding on Killarney, with the flow of traffic remaining “average” and “rat racing” seeming “far fetched”.

“There’s no evidence of it being used as a shortcut from Atlas Road to Lakefield Avenue,” said Mokheseng.

“Other roads in the surrounding areas were visited and observed (and) excessive speeding was not picked up, except on Edward Street and Lakefield Avenue where speed violations were detected.

“As a result, the two mentioned roads will be under surveillance.”

Residents, however, insist traffic calming measures are put in place.

While the EMPD findings oppose that of the residents’, residents are still within their rights to request traffic calming measures for the area.

“The residents have a right to apply for traffic calming measures,” confirmed Ekurhuleni divisional head of communication and media relations Nhlanhla Cebekhulu.

Cebekhulu stated the following procedure entailed for the above:

• All traffic calming requests can be in the form of a formal application submitted on the “Request for Traffic Calming Study” form, obtainable from any Roads and Stormwater offices, customer care centre or on the EMM website at www.ekurhuleni.gov.za.

•Letters and emails containing the relative information as requested in the official form will be accepted as well.

• Completed applications must be submitted to the metro’s Roads and Stormwater offices.

• To the extent possible, each request must identify the street(s) or area of concern and describe the nature of the problem(s).

• The request shall contain relevant signatures of residents in the block (s) where installation is required.

• If the information is not sufficient the request may be rejected.

• All traffic calming requests will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis as and when they are received.

Process from application to implementation:

• Receiving application

• Screening and preliminary investigations

• Define study area

• Identify road category

• Collect traffic data

• Apply warrants

• Approval of traffic calming measures

• Funding

• Implementation

Traffic calming will be considered in the following circumstances:

• No traffic calming measures shall be implemented, at all, at signalised intersections.

• In general traffic calming should not be considered at the stop or yield controlled intersection.

• Provision for pedestrians and cyclists should be of a high quality in the implementation of all traffic calming measures.

• In the event of high speeds, speed calming must be introduced by means of law enforcement by EMPD,

• No traffic calming measures shall be installed in Enclosed Areas as there are no through traffic (only residents drive on roads in Enclosed Areas).

• No traffic Calming measures shall be installed in Central Business Districts and Commercial Developments

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