‘This road is dangerous’ to live on

Residents in Roodepoort street complain cars frequently crash into their walls, almost killing their children

Residents of homes situated on a sharp bend on Albert Street in Weltevreden Park in Roodepoort, west of Johannesburg, believe speed humps are the only solution to stop motorists from crashing into their boundary walls. 

Jennifer van der Westhuizen, whose property is on the street, has had vehicles crashing into her wall and her neighbours’ wall since she moved into the area more than four years ago. 

She described the portion of the road, where the speed limit is 40km/h, as a “notorious bend” where residents have witnessed numerous accidents. 

In the latest of these accidents, a vehicle last Sunday hit her boundary wall while her children were playing outside in the yard with their dog by the pool. 

“Someone drove straight through our wall, with the debris of the wall nearly hitting them [children]. Three weeks before, we had a drunk driver not even brake around the corner and wrap himself around the tree on our pavement, which caused damage to our wall,” Van der Westhuizen said. 

The first accident occurred just after they moved into their new home in 2020, followed by two more. This year alone, there were four accidents and two of them, which occurred last month, “were shockingly scary”.

In a recent accident, a motorist bumped into her wall while the children were playing outside in the yard and if it weren’t for a palm tree, he would have either killed them or crashed into her lounge, she said. 

“The accident before that, we had a drunk driver coming down the road that barely missed our wall but hit the tree on our pavement which damaged our wall.”

Van der Westhuizen is trying to get hold of a company to install huge boulders on her pavement to prevent motorists hitting the wall.

“Our children are not allowed to play outside, which is terrible for them because that is the biggest space that we have in the yard. They can’t swim because they are petrified of somebody coming through our wall.

“Especially now with the recent accident, my children are petrified to even go to bed because our bedrooms face that wall,” she said.

Residents have engaged the Johannesburg Road Agency to install speed humps but it only put up a barrier around the corner.

The agency refused to install speed humps explaining the accidents were not because of the road but rather was due to the drivers’ behaviour and negligence. Van der Westhuizen argues that drivers’ negligence should have given the JRA more reason to install the humps. 

Her neighbour across the road, Sylvia Philips, said at one point the street lights were not working and the bend was “just a dark corner”. Most of the accidents occurred between 11pm and 2am. “It is when you are sleeping that you suddenly hear somebody crashing. One guy hit the wall of my neighbour and ended up on my driveway.

“The wheels were off. The last one, the whole engine had dropped down on the ground. It is a very dangerous corner,” said Philips. 

Since then, when returning home she drives past her driveway, then turns around and drives into her property, she said. “I can’t even think of coming from the direction where the accidents happened. I am too scared that the car will come to me when I am driving to my property.”  

Philips said when they asked the JRA’s barriers had helped “but not that much”. 

JRA acting head of mobility and freight  Sipho Nhlapo, said their traffic engineers had assessed the road and determined that the gradient and sight distance of the road was not conducive to the installation of speed humps. Other safety measures were installed.

“We have extended the guardrails by 5m to protect the resident’s wall and the houses. We have installed road studs on the bend. We have reinstalled the 60km and 40km signs because there is a school,” he said. 

They had also installed sharp bend warning signs, painted yellow lines on both sides of the road and painted speed humps further up near the school and wrote “slow” on the road.

Nhlapo said the JRA visited the site with residents including residents association members, who were satisfied with their interventions.

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