Dark Delmas Road a ‘death trap’ for motorists
A lack of functional streetlights and motorists speeding lead to many crashes on this road.
Residents in the east of Pretoria have raised concerns about the lack of proper lighting and streetlights on Delmas Road, which is a safety and crime hazard.
According to the community, streetlights help reduce crashes at night by improving visibility. However, on Delmas Road, it’s a different story and more and more crashes are being reported.
They alleged the main road has been pitch black with no working streetlights for over four years.
This enables criminals to move easily along Delmas Road between residences and the dumpsite nearby.
Residents said another reason for the high accident rate on this road is speeding.
The spokesperson for the Lyttelton S4 Community Police sub-forum, Shawn Fouche said Delmas Road is a death trap.
“The road is pitch black at night.”
She said the speed limit on this road is 60km/h but motorists regularly exceed that even when driving on a solid line.
“Delmas is used by scholars to and from school. We have already had one child killed, allegedly due to speed.
Some motorists drive at 120km/h plus on this road. This road is also used by lots of heavy-duty vehicles.”
She said the community urgently requests speed traps be placed on Delmas Road, between Dam Road and Solomon Mahlangu Drive as well as working streetlights.
The residents called on the metro to prioritise lighting as it helps with visibility and crime fighting.
Ward 101 councillor Malcolm de Klerk said many residents have raised concerns about the functionality of streetlights, which are crucial for safety and aesthetics.
He said currently, only 11% of the 56 800 lights in Region 6 are operational.
“Under our administration, we halted substandard contractor agreements and redirected resources to the electricity department for better results. I urge residents to continue reporting issues, and we will keep pressuring the new administration to prioritise service delivery.”
Metro spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said the public lighting maintenance contract has lapsed, and the process to appoint a replacement is at an advanced stage.
“The region has implemented an internal makeshift team to attend to streetlight queries albeit at a slower pace due to the limited capacity.”
Mashigo said currently the region is prioritising streetlights on main routes but the impact is minimal at the moment because of continuous theft and vandalism.
He said attending to streetlight maintenance queries, new service requests and outstanding complaints depends on the availability of resources.
“Therefore, the region is unable to adhere to the expected time frames in line with the norms and standards. As soon as the streetlight maintenance tender is finalised, the regional operations will be able to augment the current limited capacity to attend to all outstanding streetlight queries,” Mashigo said.
“As a result, there will be improvements when more teams are available to deal with new streetlight service requests and the backlog.”
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