Port Alfred-Kleinemonde road needs strict policing

AN open letter to our chief traffic officer, Fred Cannon.

Nearly three months ago you attended a community police forum meeting in Kleinemonde (Seafield) where you spelt out the action your department would be taking over the growing traffic problems on the road between Port Alfred and our community.

During that meeting, you told us that not only would temporary speed humps be erected, but that speed traps would also be manned, particularly through the village of Kleinemonde where most of the complaints emanated from.

Well I would like to state that we have seen the ineffective speed humps go up at the construction site, we have seen continuous white lines painted along the entire length of the affected road, but of the speed traps, only one has been seen in all that time. And then only for a duration of approximately an hour or so.

Since then, the situation has become far worse.

The speed humps may as well not be there, speeding is rife, overtaking on double or single white lines is rife, overtaking on either side of the road at the two crossings in Kleinemonde is now almost inevitable, when trying to turn one way – or the other. Stories abound among the residents of Kleinemonde about nearmisses that occur because of stupid and reckless driving. Head-on near-misses are par for the course.

The huge backlog of vehicles that build-up in the stop and go areas, only give those at the rear an excuse to overtake at all costs to make up for lost time.

Some drivers even take to the section of the road being worked on to speed past you and then duck back in just in time before running out of road. Every time we travel to Port Alfred and back, we can count on the fingers of both hands the number of bad driving incidents that we are witness to. All the time not a cop to be seen.

For the first time since moving here years ago, we are actually frightened to travel on this road.

Oh sorry, we did see a traffic cop once, sitting head down in his car opposite the harbour while texting away on his cellphone, all the time not looking up once in the entire 10 minutes we were parked in the carpark across the road.

I did recognise the cop but thought it best not to mention his name here.

Please, do not wait until someone dies in a head-on pile-up. Act now and clamp down like you promised. Remember these words and do not let me or anyone else remind you after someone actually dies, that you were once again reminded of the seriousness of the situation.