THERE were at least 111 crashes on Ou Kaapseweg in the 10-month period between mid-December and the middle of this month – and these figures do not include that of a cyclist seriously injured in a hit-and-run incident this week.
The statistics were provided by the City of Cape Town in response to a request by the Cape Argus, and come as residents and ratepayers are demanding answers on why measures recommended over the past decade to reduce major traffic snarl-ups and many crashes on the now severelycongested drive have been ignored – a charge disputed by the city.
Traffic congestion on Ou Kaapseweg has increased significantly in recent years, and become particularly acute in the past two months, because of the rehabilitation of Main Road between Muizenberg and Clovelly.
The city’s statistics reveal that there were no fatalities but two serious injuries in the 111 recorded incidents, and that nine people were slightly injured.
In a single black five-day period at the end of September/beginning of October, there were nine incidents – including three on one of those five days.
The most recent fatalities on Ou Kaapseweg occurred in June last year when two people died in a crash, and in November two bikers were severely injured in a head-on collision with a truck.
While most of the incidents reported in the city’s statistics involved ordinary cars, other vehicles included light delivery vans (one incident involved three of these vehicles), panel vans, a heavy vehicle weighing more than 3.5 tons, minibuses and an articulated truck, while pedestrians, a motorcyclist, a cyclist and “fixed objects” were also cited.
The incidents occurred both on Ou Kaapseweg itself and at the intersections with Steenberg Road, Silvermine Road, The Bend, Kommetjie Road, “Four ways” (Kommetjie Road), Buller Louw Drive, Noordhoek Road, Westlake Drive and Frigate Road.
A group of seven civic organisations from the “Far South” of the Peninsula, the body corporate of the Steenberg office park and the Home Owners’ Association of the adjoining Silvertree Estate at the northern end of Ou Kaapseweg, are now collectively tackling the city about problems on the drive.
They are pointing to remedial and safety measures proposed in three separate reports between 2002 and 2009 that include eight passing lanes – three in the south-bound and five in the north-bound lanes on Ou Kaapseweg – as well as an arrester bed at its intersection with Steenberg Road at its northern end, and several improvements at the intersection with Silvermine Road where there were 50 incidents in a six-year period between 2003 and 2008.
In one of their two legal letters requesting an urgent meeting to discuss the problems and possible shortterm improvements to the route, the city stands accused of doing “precisely nothing” to resolve the problems, but this is denied by Brett Herron, mayoral committee member for transport, roads and stormwater.
By yesterday, the civics and the two associations had still not managed to secure a date with the city.
According to the minutes of a community meeting in Fish Hoek last year to discuss speed control on Kommetjie Road, principal traffic inspector for the South Peninsula Mark Harding revealed that there were just 12 traffic officers for the entire area from Grassy Park and Retreat southwards – six per shift.
Asked by Janet Holwill, chairwoman of the Fish Hoek Valley Residents’ and Ratepayer’ Association, what the key factor was to stop fatalities, he replied “visible law enforcement actions”, the minutes state.
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