Truck nightmares rattle sleepy Velddrif
● Cornelia van Dyk can no longer risk having tea on her front stoep in Velddrif.
The number of trucks rumbling through town has forced her and the crockery inside, such is the commotion day and night.
“You can’t even hear yourself speak — it just doesn’t stop,” said Van Dyk, who lives on Voortrekker Road, the main road through the once-quiet West Coast town on the Berg River estuary. “People retire here. But you can’t sleep — it is not a way to live.”
She has reason for concern. Velddrif is falling apart due to the rising number of trucks carrying manganese and iron ore from the Northern Cape that use it as a short cut to the port at nearby Saldanha Bay. The town’s bridge across the Berg River is buckling under the pressure and needs rebuilding, as do other roads.
Velddrif is a casualty of South Africa’s logistics crisis — the collapse of freight rail cost an estimated R411bn in lost revenue last year alone, according to finance minister Enoch Godongwana’s medium-term budget policy statement.
The increasing flow of trucks — some weighing more than 50 tonnes — is destroying road infrastructure and upping the accident toll. Trucks have overturned in Velddrif and on the N7, the main route between Cape Town and the Namibian border.
Residents called an emergency meeting last month, attended by provincial mobility MEC Ricardo Mackenzie. They are demanding a solution, pointing out that truckers appear to be avoiding a more direct route to Saldanha on a relatively new road, possibly to avoid weighbridges.
“Velddrif has always been a rustige [quiet] place next to the river,” said Riviera Hotel general manager Rick Thiart. “But the trucks are really stuffing up our roads. At two intersections they have already taken out tar and it has had to be replaced with paving — the tar just disintegrates.”
He said there had been a marked increase in truck volume over the past few years. “Sometimes it sounds like they are coming through my hotel — the noise is really bad.”
Velddrif chamber of commerce chair Johnny da Silva counted 66 trucks on one occasion while driving the 60km stretch of the R399 that connects the town to Piketberg, where the secondary road meets the N7.
“We’re not against trucks ... We’ve always had some coming through to the harbour or from the farms. But what is going on now is unacceptable. Something needs to be done,” he said. A new bylaw limiting truck weight on certain roads or a revised permitting system were two suggestions under discussion.
The trucks were out in force on Thursday. A driver carrying a load of manganese said: “It’s the way we’ve always come.”
Velddrif is only one of many small towns suffering as a result of the freight rail collapse. The increase in heavy duty vehicles is in direct proportion to the sharp decrease in freight rail volumes, which dropped 23.6million tonnes in financial 2023 from the year before, according to Transnet.
The government has established a national logistics crisis committee to try to improve port and freight rail operations.
Mackenzie acknowledged the town’s truck crisis: “For the community to come together like this indicates the gravity of the situation,” he told provincial business stakeholders at a Cape Chamber of Commerce & Industry (CCCI) workshop last month.
CCCI CEO John Lawson said Velddrif’s crumbling roads were an example of how the logistics crisis was destroying economic ecosystems.
“Truck companies are delivering the goods but are causing the taxpayer enormous cost. The people suffering are in the small towns where these roads are not being upgraded fast enough.”
He suggested those making profits from the cargoes should contribute more towards infrastructure upgrades.
“Somebody needs to say no to these trucks. The Springboks didn’t win by chance — they made it happen. Our local communities must take responsibility for their own areas,” Lawson said.