Commuting is a genuine South African pastime. Depending on your locale, some do considerably more than others. For instance, Durbanites cringe at the thought of a two hour slog to their holiday destination, whereas a person living in Jo-burg doesn’t even need pad-kos for the one hour, four kilometre trip to work in the morning. The more time we spend on the arteries of our commuter infrastructure the more likely we are to encounter the idiocies that are our roads and the arch-villain: ROADWORKS!
Travelling on a road in the Natal midlands I passed a sign – and no it was not temporary – stating the following message: Warning! Potholes 4km. Now road signs are ingenious inventions with their reflective surfaces that work equally well in the wet and in the dry. Their large size to improve their visibility, not to mention the tree that was felled to keep it off of the ground; all of this adds to their cost.
Massive roadworks are taking place on the N3 and at the start of each section, where the artery of three lanes is narrowed to a capillary of just one; there stands a man or a woman in expensive reflective gear waving with much enthusiasm: a red flag. New applicant for world’s most boring job. Surely someone in an office would see it fit to move that poor, flag bearing sod to that four kilometre stretch to fill the potholes rather than spending money on a sign warning motorists that they should engage their traction control for the next round of dodgems. I suppose the evasion of the ever increasing number of road hazards does add to the excitement of driving on our roads. Some mornings on my commute to work it seems as if it’s a race to see who arrives at work alive never mind first.
The road workers seem to want to continue with their jobs. I worked this out upon the sighting of a sign that says: “Pease don’t kill us!”. Well, for heavens sake man, the only reason I’d want to kill you would be because you are busy making our roads boringly flat and smooth! I must however applaud the men and women who stand out in the cold rain and baking sun toiling away their days on the asphalt for days and months and years…on the same stretch of road! Must it really take so long? Investors have pumped millions of Rands into the upgrade of a stretch of road. Now there is only x amount of cash. Would it not be in the best interests of all parties to work harder, finish sooner and get the same amount of pay in less time? I would personally rather receive pay for amount of job done, not time spent farting around doing nothing but stand around waving a flag with eight of my mates while watching one poor bloke wear the skin off his knuckles trying to dig a trench on his own. So South African.
It seems logical to finish the work at hand fast and well so that the other many thousands of kilometres of deteriorated roads can be fixed and mended rather than do the bare minimum possible to be able to draw salary at the end of the week.
As we bottle-neck our way into the choke of yet another stretch of road maintenance lets just keep calm. Turn up the radio, wind down your window and feel the wind in your face. Rest in the thought that when the chevrons and cones end, you can slip out from behind that cane truck and cut off that taxi that has been examining the dirt on your rear window for the last while. Dodge that!
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