AFTER many years of their complaints to the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality for traffic calming measures in Daniel Pienaar Drive having gone unanswered, residents have started a petition to address what they call a high risk accident zone in proximity to two high schools.
Ward 51 councillor Pieter Terblanche said they have received 550 electronic and 180 hard copy signed petitions which will be handed over to the municipality.
There are almost 2 000 learners who attend the two schools.
According to Terblanche many learners make use of minibus taxis and buses. There are also parents that drop off their children and in some cases, learners use their own vehicles and motorbikes.
“Some vehicles double park and others drive on the wrong side of the road. There have been terrible accidents over the last few years in this busy road,” Terblanche said.
He said they demand a traffic light on the corner of Daniel Pienaar and Van der Stel Avenue, a traffic controller, a pedestrian crossing and regular law enforcement.
He further said the existing drop-off zones for learners at the two schools are not big enough, and they need a larger drop-off area.
“Minibuses and the buses often take up all the space at the drop-off zones when they offload the learners. This causes a bottleneck in this area and delays the traffic,” Terblanche said.
He said he has reported the traffic issues to the municipality, and he has requested for traffic intervention repeatedly over the last eight years, but he has had no success.
Strelitzia High School principal, Omar Nielsen said the traffic in Daniel Pienaar Drive has always been a problem, but has been escalating because more people have cars and the number of learners has increased substantially.
“The two schools are in proximity to each other. The traffic is chaotic during peak hours,” Nielsen said.
Nielsen further said there were about three accidents since he has been at the school. Among the problems is speeding around the corner.
Nielsen said he has reported the traffic problems to the municipality on many occasions in the past 15 years, but they have either given him a negative response or they have not responded at all.
“Safety is very important to the school and it has been a plea of mine for many years to protect the learners and the teachers,” Nielsen said.
He would like the municipality to place two speed humps along the road and a ‘danger, school ahead’ sign.
Municipal spokesperson, Kupido Baron said their approach to dealing with the issues is a hybrid of traffic calming measures and law enforcement.
“We already put traffic wardens on point duty with the intention of fining culprits who deliberately ignore the red lines and no-stopping signs erected in Daniel Pienaar Drive. We will continue to monitor this area as often as we can to take action against offenders as there is a demarcated drop-off zone and a bus stop where learners must be dropped off,” Baron said.
