EDITOR – Well done to the traffic officer riding a motorbike who stopped and fined a vehicle on the corner of Botanic Gardens and King Dinuzulu Road last week.
I wish there were more of them permanently on duty at that extremely busy intersection, or at least one day a week. Metro/Traffic Police are often found wandering Florida Road fining people who park outside a demarcated space but, where they are really needed, causing danger to the motoring public and pedestrians alike, you never set eyes on one.
I drive that route, on a school run, 4 times a day and despite it being a well known permanent taxi rank, stop etc. it is also used as a learner driver section of road and an open air public toilet – I object to my child having to see a person urinating on a street corner. In addition, twolanes of Botanic Gardens Road have now become three lanes as impatient cars and taxis overtake in the face of oncoming traffic. When they get to King Dinuzulu Road intersection they cut across the front of the two lanes of traffic to drive into King Dinuzulu or stop in the middle of the intersection to pick up/drop off more passengers, thereby holding up traffic while the majority obey whatever laws of the road are left in Durban.
Not only do we have to contend with the taxi rank issue, despite the no stopping signs on that section, we also have the cardboard/paper collectors with their green bins or their home made four wheeled wagons or shopping trolleys also using the road and not the pavement as it's obviously inconvenient for them to get trolleys on and off pavements.
Cars are held up in that area at least 10 minutes every morning between 7am to 8.30am and then again when schools break up in the afternoons.
All the revenue that is being lost by the Durban Metro Police on a daily basis in the form of fines, could pay for a semi-permanent officer on duty a few days a week.
I trust somebody from the eThekwini Municipality reads this newspaper in the hope that something can be done about it before a serious accident occurs.
The frightening thing is that many parents have toddlers and very young children standing between the front seats, on a front/back seat with no seat belt which could end up in tragedy.
Finally has the use of indicators been banned on our roads?
M Granger
Morningside
