On March 26, 2009 Witbank HTS’ governing body sent out the first of eight letters to the Emalahleni Municipality requesting that speed humps be erected in front of the school on Beyers Street.
In the latest letter issued by the governing body on April 17, a reply was received from the adminstrator’s office saying that the report was apparently lost while circulating, and that the report will be put on agenda in the next coming council meeting and that the requests are dependant on the finances which are currently unavailable.
The response continued that a traffic impact study would have
to be carried out before speed humps can be placed and that the Roads Section of the municipality suggested that the school report stating the need for the erection of speed humps be reported to the Department of Education as they might have the budget to erect these speed humps.
With no favour from the municipality the school set out to solve some of the issues faced along municipal roads, namely erecting new stop signs at school cost on the intersection of Beyers and Danie Theron Streets, as well as repainting the road markings which are supposed to be maintained by the Emalahleni Municipality.
HTS isn’t the only school faced with a lack of funding from the municipality, roughly six years back Laerskool Kragbron also applied for speed humps to be erected in Rose-Innes Street. The school was told there were no funds for the erection of speed humps and decided to collect money to erect the humps themselves.
Even though the school managed to raise the necessary funding, they still needed permission from the municipality and had to erect the humps according to their specifications.
Six years ago those speed humps erected around Laerskool Kragbron cost close to R12 000 per hump with the larger pedestrian crossing hump costing R15 000.
“The municipality had no contribution towards the humps, markings or signs, and they still don’t have money to erect speed humps, we carry out all the maintenance of road markings around the school,” said Mr Pieter Zeelie, deputy principal.
The school managed to raise the funding through the parents of the school and one parent, a contractor carried out the erection of the humps.
Mr Wikus Naude, principal at Hoërskool Generaal Hertzog suggested using conveyer speed humps, this came to his attention when the school’s deputy visited the Free State and saw that these humps were in fact quite effective at slowing down the traffic.
“You cut a wide piece of conveyer belt, then cut smaller sections and layer them on top, we have one erected within the school grounds and it does its job well,” said Naude.
When questioned about the speed hump and traffic issue, the Emalahleni Municipality responded that no final decision on this matter has been taken and that a response would be given at the earliest convenience.
