OPINION Southwell accidents continue

THE past week once again highlighted the hazards of the Southwell Road bend with three accidents taking place within days of each other.

Last Friday morning there was a two-car collision in the lane descending the hill. The road was slick from rain earlier that morning but the actual cause of the collision is unknown.

On Monday afternoon a state ambulance veered off the road and into a ditch alongside the lane going up the hill.

Again, the cause of the accident is unknown, but thankfully no injuries were reported to either the driver or a patient he was transporting.

However, the scene was made more hazardous by the number of vehicles which had stopped on the narrow shoulders on either side of the road.

The nature of the accident certainly did not require multiple traffic vehicles – more than can normally be seen around town – as well as MultiSecurity, a towing service and other hangers-on.

To make matters worse a Toyota Hilux double cab also stopped on the shoulder and the reckless driver beckoned a bystander to tell him what had happened. Motorists like that need to catch a wake-up.

On Tuesday morning there was another accident adjacent to the KFC, this time involving a Cerebos truck which lost almost its entire load, scattering bags of salt across the road.

The driver said another vehicle had overtaken him on the bend, forcing him to drift to the left shoulder and then causing him to over-correct towards the right which made the cargo shift and rip through the truck sails.

We have heard nothing further about a planned upgrade to the R72 which would include safety interventions like a dedicated truck lane and rumble strips to stop speeding on both Southwell hill and Albany hill on the other side of town.

Moving from accidents to crime, it seems some police officers need lessons on which areas fall under the jurisdiction of which stations, as police response to a break-in on a farm near Kenton last Saturday was delayed when a warrant officer argued with MultiSecurity that the Port Alfred SAPS was not responsible for the farming area in question.

The policeman said the Kenton police station should respond but, rather than calling Kenton, he told MultiSecurity to make the call. The Kenton station, however, told MultiSecurity the farm falls under Port Alfred SAPS.

After MultiSecurity called Port Alfred SAPS again, the warrant officer still maintained that Kenton was responsible! It took two other MultiSecurity officers to confirm that the area falls under Port Alfred before the warrant officer relented.

– Jon Houzet