It is quite alarming what stories make the news as this would not be happening in a normal country. South Africa is slightly different however as traffic lights even though they are part of the infrastructure are seen as an opportunity for those earning from scrap metal. Crime unfortunately is rampant here and one cannot blame unemployment as this has been going on for well over two decades and is not something recent.
I never knew this was a big problem until one night when working late at the old warehouse I heard what sounded like a chain saw which was odd being the early hours of the morning. When i left in the morning I drove through the what the previous night was once a working traffic light intersection to find nothing visible and was all stolen. This was back in 2010 and those lights have never been replaced.
The wiring/cabling inside plus the actual poles are all sold for scrap and it leaves motorists and pedestrians vulnerable. Just to give you an idea on how bad this crisis really is there is an app running for motorists to report any traffic lights not working and there are more than 24 pages currently with some of the reports highlighting an entire stretch of road counting as one report which would have many traffic lights on that route.
The above map is an example as it does not include residential areas and is only part of Johannesburg. The traffic department suggests they are spending more on the infrastructure now by having to use concrete but how does that help when the thieves just got the traffic light poles off at ground level. The repair budget is slightly misleading as it is a full replacement and not exactly a repair job.
We are all used to not having traffic lights especially when there is load shedding but this situation is beyond ridiculous. Just driving to work during rush hour traffic is challenging enough knowing you need to leave a good 30 minutes earlier due to the chaos on the roads.
When you consider more than 50% of the drivers do not have legitimate driving licenses they have no clue what to do when arriving at a 4 way intersection. You can tell immediately they are guessing when it is their turn to go and this creates hesitancy which results in accidents.
Just this week I had two close encounters with other cars who did not even slow down and just drove straight through and we all know they have no insurance.
We had one set replaced down the road last week and the only way I know this is the plastic wrapping is still clearly visible on the poles. How many weeks will these new shiny poles last as their days are surely numbered. One would expect security cameras linked to control monitors so these types of infrastructure are protected, but no they would rather spend money knowing they will soon disappear as they are all involved in these criminal syndicates.
The budget has now been spent and I suppose we will have to wait till next year to get those roads needing their traffic lights replaced knowing that all the ones replaced will also be missing by that time.