Truck stranded in pothole on neglected Welverdiend road
Drivers must be extremely careful on this road.
The government’s lack of maintenance on the road leading into Welverdiend caused a truck to get stuck in a hole this weekend.
On Sunday morning just after 09:00 a big truck with two trailers got stuck in one of the holes on the side of the road as one enters Welverdiend over the railway line. Luckily the truck was pulled out later the day.
As far as could be determined the driver was not injured.
“This, what residents have feared, has now happened,” one resident remarked on social media.
This road has been in a terrible state for years due to the many heavy trucks that pass through on this main route.
It is alleged that many truck drivers use the road through Welverdiend to bypass the weighbridge on the N12 near Potchefstroom.
Residents such as a local councillor Tollie Lubbe have pleaded with authorities to do something about the problem.
Its condition deteriorated to such an extent that groups of unemployed residents and sometimes even school children have started to fill the many potholes with gravel.
They dig the gravel up from this side of the road.
So much gravel has, however, been dug up over time that there are now deep holes on the side of the section of the road between the turn after the railway tracks and the town’s main street, 10th Avenue.
From approximately two years ago some of the holes have become so wide and deep that the palisade fencing between the road and the railway tracks has started to collapse into it.
The condition of the road is still so bad that motorists, such as the truck driver on Sunday, have to drive on the wrong side of the road to avoid some of the worst potholes. Some of the local motorists have even started to drive through the veld to avoid this section of the road.
The Herald again took the issue to the Krugersdorp region Department of Roads and Transport’s regional manager, Bulelwa Thomas. The damaged road at Welverdiend falls under the jurisdiction of her office.
The Herald also sent questions to the Merafong City Local Municipality’s Marketing and Communications Manager, Temba Fezani, to hear if, or how, the municipality could assist.
Only Thomas, however, indicated that she would work on the problem.
