Hawkers tamper with robots
The regular outages of the robots at Jushua Gumede Road and St John's Avenue, Pinetown, have been attributed to criminals and hawkers tampering with the signal boxes.
HAWKERS and criminals are targeting and tampering with the robots on Jushua Gumede Road and St John’s Avenue in Pinetown.
Cst Lungile Mbatha, of the Pinetown SAPS, has confirmed that they have received reports from residents claiming that they have witnessed the hawkers tampering with the robots.
Councillor Tim Brauteseth, of ward 18, said, “I have received reports of the hawkers tampering with the signal boxes of these robots to slow down the traffic so that they can sell their goods. I have reported the issue to the Department of Transport about a month ago and they assured me that they would have the signal boxes bolted to prevent people from tampering with the signal boxes, but so far they have not lived up to this promise”.
According Justin Bosse, the chairman on the Ashley Resident’s Neighbourhood Watch, criminals have also tampered with the robot’s signal boxes, essentially making residents waiting by the robots “sitting ducks” to smash and crab incidents.
“We have responded to a number of reports where there has been a smash and grab at an intersection where the robots were out. The residents are made vulnerable as the intersection is often turned into a chaotic four-point-stop, and they are concentrating on the other vehicles rather than their surroundings.
Residents should try to remain vigilant while approaching such an intersection and hoot whenever a suspicious individual approaches their car,” said Bosse.
Mbatha urged residents to report similar issues to the SAPS. “People need to specify where and when it happened and they should also try to provide us with a description of the suspect,” she said.
Kwanele Ncalane, the KwaZulu-Natal Transport spokesman did not respond by the time of production.
