When the lights went out, road safety diminished too – and it seems as if the municipality couldn’t care less.
These images were shared with us by a concerned citizen, Jenny Gouws, who had been stuck on OR Tambo Road the morning of July 20.
The municipality had become aware of power outages in and around OR Tambo Road the previous day around 21:00, and had posted a notice regarding this to their Facebook-page.
ALSO READ
Municipality must step up their game
‘Toilet seats are a nice-to-have’
Citizens were shocked to find that, despite the municipality being aware of the power outages in the area, the traffic department had allegedly not been dispatched to direct the flow of traffic on this incredibly busy road.
From top: the notice posted by the municipality, the traffic standing block still due to the traffic lights being affected by the power outage and eMalahleni traffic officers loitering around their vehicle.
Eventually the traffic department did make their appearance, but instead of directing traffic to avoid any further collisions, they stood next to their vehicle observing the chaos.
This incident raises the question of why the traffic department weren’t dispatched sooner if the municipality had known about the power outages for nearly 15 hours, and why the traffic department thought it appropriate to spend any amount of time staring at the traffic, instead of directing it.
