DEAR Editor,-
In its latest debacle, one sincerely hopes that while appearing to show it cares, Hibiscus Coast Municipality has not traded on personal grief for the purposes of electioneering.
I refer of course to the inter-faith prayer ‘outing’ that took place last Thursday for the families of the victims of the New Year’s Day horror crash on the stretch of highway between Ramsgate and Southbroom.
Only HCM could come up with the preposterous decision to stage the event in the middle of day, at the scene of the accident, requiring the closure of this busy nine kilometre stretch for several hours two days before the coast settles in to welcome visitors and upcountry homeowners for the Freedom Day long weekend.
No doubt HCM considered it a brilliant idea. The hundreds of motorists caught up in the fiasco didn’t. Didn’t it dawn on anyone to think of erecting signage giving advance warning to motorists, especially those heading towards the highway to travel south at the Alford Road traffic lights?
Of course not, because HCM was kept more than busy ensuring that the marquee was erected on the grassed area alongside the Ramsgate off -ramp in time to house the refreshments and I would imagine, its chosen food – you know, the fast stuff that the Kentucky ‘colonel’ chap is famous for.
As well as offering prayers, the ‘event’ was also apparently about creating awareness about road safety. Well, if the squad of traffic police deployed to oversee this exercise had been out and about, doing what they are employed for, taxpayers and ratepayers would have been more impressed.
HCM was otherwise engaged, so it may like to know that the old main road, which winds its way past the Crocodile Farm and along to the Alford Road traffic lights was a nightmare with buses, heavy transport, trucks, delivery vehicles, taxis, bakkies and cars all trying their best to negotiate this narrow road in safety.
With angry, frustrated drivers at the wheel, quite frankly, it was nothing short of a miracle that HCM was spared another horror crash statistic.
THURSDAY MOTORIST
