DEAR Editor,-
Down here on the lower South Coast of KZN, we have become some of the world’s best ‘pothole drivers’. To be a ‘pothole driver’, you have to learn a totally new set of skills that were not taught to you when you took your original driving licence test at the Port Shepstone Licensing Department.
To navigate the roads, you are required to have at least the most fundamental knowledge. You have to: 1 know what a pothole on an otherwise tarred road looks like; 2 be able to recognise a pothole, irrespective of what speed you are doing; 3 know what a pothole looks like when filled with water and imitates the tarred road; 4 how to navigate your car around these types of potholes.
Then you have to know the difference between: 1 small potholes – because if you hit them they are unlikely to cause much damage to your car’s suspension; 2 medium potholes – which, when you hit them, jolt your teeth and make the potholes bigger; 3 bigger potholes – which you studiously avoid because they would cause major damage to your tyres and/or suspension and which, with some luck, you may be able to claim damages from the municipality for, and, 4 major potholes – in this last category, some may remember that on New Year’s Eve a couple of years ago, a BMW with drunken revellers going down Corris Road fell into a huge pothole. The next morning when I went to the Manaba tidal pool for a swim, there was this BMW with its rear end sticking out of a huge pothole. If you go there, you will see that the hole was filled with concrete in the hope that it may never be a pothole again.
With this brief introduction, I hope I have been able to convince you that the money you are paying to the municipality in rates and taxes is being totally wasted on overseas jaunts and expensive ‘Yengenis’. However, the good news is that I am able to offer you a very inexpensive course in pothole driving.
EXPERT NAVIGATOR
Uvongo
