Wolwefontein Avenue has had 24 accidents in five years – two of which were serious.
The road, which stretches from Scottsdene into Northpine Drive, is considered high-risk for fatal accidents, said senior City of Cape Town traffic engineer Darren Willenberg, in his report to Sub-council 2 last week.
The road’s request for traffic-calming measures was among several on the sub-council’s agenda on Thursday August 17.
According to Mr Willenberg’s report, 14 of the accidents in the road had been at intersections. There were five accidents at the Goedehoop intersection and four at the Northpine Drive intersection and five scattered at other intersections. However, 10 of the accidents on the road had been between intersections, including the two most serious ones. Most of the accidents happened at night.
Thembinkosi Sgam has lived in the road for four years and suspects it is used for drag racing at night.
“I think they are dicing in this road,” he said.
Cars could be heard speeding on the road until the early hours of the morning. And speeding was also a big problem during the day.
“We are worried about our kids,” he said.
Mr Sgam’s home is just a few metres from two of the three speed humps already in the road.
“They come over that bump and then go so fast,” Mr Sgam said.
The proposal before sub-council last Thursday was to add four more humps and councillors backed it unanimously.
Jarome Faroa stays in Parkwood Road, a few metres from the Northpine Drive intersection with Wolwefontein Avenue. He said the stop signs at that intersection were largely ignored, and he was glad to hear the road would get more speed humps because he had seen several crashes in the 10 years he had lived there.
Mr Faroa said speeding on the road was also a problem but he didn’t believe there was drag racing taking place.
“It’s just guys teasing each other on the road,” he said. “But if there’s bumps, they can’t do it anymore because they will hurt their vehicles.”
Traffic services spokesman Richard Coleman said there had been no complaints about drag-racing in Wolwefontein Avenue.
Sub-council also discussed a traffic-calming application for Rosanna Street in Watsonia Park last week, but the sub-council agenda notes appear to have confused it with another road, referring to Rosette Street towards the end of the item.
Mr Twigg however maintained that both streets had applied for traffic-calming measures.
But residents in Rosanna Street told Northern News the road was quiet – something echoed by the traffic assessment, which found the area was not high risk and the road only “serves residents within the neighbourhood”.
But Mr Twigg said councillors had done a site visit and the request had been coming on for a long time.
Councillor Xoliswa Pakela-Mapasa said: “This is the second time we are getting this report from the very same community.”
She recommended the item be discussed in more detail with the department of roads and stormwater, and Mr Twigg agreed.