[imagesource:twitter/chaifm]

You could argue that Joburg is in the trenches.

A number of dugout ditches have littered the main and residential roads in some parts of Johannesburg, becoming a serious safety concern for drivers.

One car drove into a trench created by Johannesburg Water just days after the entity said that it had filled 15 205 trenches.

Residents have been up in arms about these trenches, which were once dug, and were not covered up again by the governing body, creating hazardous roads and car accidents galore.

“I told my kids, ‘someone’s going to drive into it’,” a resident, who did not want to be named, told News24 about the ditch near her house.

She said that two trenches were dug after a complaint about a burst water pipe, and when she heard the crash-bang one night, she knew what had happened before even looking:

“If someone doesn’t close it up, there will be an accident, I said. I knew, with the way people were driving past, they were so impatient.”

Indeed, the car-in-hole crash happened in Glenhazel after the bulk water supplier dug two ditches to try to fix a leak in the residential area. The man apparently had to crawl out of his car through the driver’s side window and managed to escape unharmed:

Seen last night on Northfield Avenue in Glenhazel.
Joburg water dug two trenche’s earlier in the day but only put barriers around one. With loadshedding this trench became invisible.
Be safe people.@JHBWater @CityofJoburgZA pic.twitter.com/BO251UcV8c

— ChaiFM (@chaifm) March 15, 2023

It is reportedly common practice for the trenches to remain open for a few days after the repair, to ensure the leaks have been fixed:

“[After the pipes were fixed] they could have pushed sand back into the trench with bulldozers and added signs and bollards. I don’t know why it took someone falling in to fix the signage on the road,” they said.

The yellow tape was clearly not enough, so tree branches were used that night to warn drivers of the ditch:

Meanwhile, before 1 July 2022, the protocol for leaks affecting road infrastructure was to have Joburg Water dig the ditch and fix the water issues. Once fixed, the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) was mandated to restore the infrastructure.

Referring to the city’s 10 depots across its seven regions to undertake service delivery issues such as reinstating holes dug for water maintenance, senior operations manager Logan Munsamy said they have received a few complaints and are trying to manage them accordingly:

“This is indeed a mammoth task, but we are making progress slowly, but surely. We do have our challenges, but we intend to build more capacity as we go along. We have to be realistic about the backlog thus far, which cannot be eradicated overnight either, but is being prioritised as it affects the safety of pedestrians and vehicle owners, as well as traffic flow management.”

Hopefully, in the meantime, nobody else drives into a ditch.

God forbid one proves fatal.

[source:news24]