Peter Desjardins, Sunningdale
Brett Herron’s remarks in response to “Residents rat on errant taxis” (Tabletalk October 18) actually shows how out of touch with reality he and the City’s transport and urban development department really are.
This is in relation to his reply to Mr Hinkley and Ms Colman’s comments about the shenanigans of the taxis along Braselton Road.
His watery feedback that the City would run surveys to gauge actual numbers of people coming into the area is little short of “waffle”.
How on earth are they going to audit these numbers? By having people with clipboards counting heads at the taxi stops?
By interviewing each and every person alighting from taxis to question their intended whereabouts? Is this man thinking straight?
Hasn’t he ever noticed taxis (as Ms Colman has rightly said, taxi drivers are a law unto themselves) stop absolutely anywhere it suits them regardless of all other road users ?
His “plan” to count heads is as totally impractical as it is nonsensical.
Specifically the point raised here is that the increased volume of taxis (and their malpractices) using this road is only the tip of the iceberg, which seemingly Mr Herron knows nothing of, as he mentions nothing of it.
For your information, Mr Herron, Braselton Road is fast becoming the test driving track for Killarney Raceway as every single day cars, motorbikes, taxis, heavy-duty lorries, race up and down this road at breakneck speed, often overtaking each other with no regard for the the observation of the speed limits, stop streets and safety of other road users that the City of Cape Town’s by-laws dictate for residential areas.
Yet Mr Herron ostensibly chooses to totally ignore these contraventions, purely focusing on “counting heads” to determine which and how many taxis will be granted licence to ply their trade, seemingly oblivious of the main aforementioned contraventions of basic traffic safety and common sense.
We in Braselton Road desperately need speed humps, maximum speed signs, speed cameras, and a noted presence of traffic officers patrolling this road to deter and catch these loonies before someone does get killed thanks to this daily insanity.
Get your priorities right, Mr Herron, to sort this lunacy out before you start wasting the City’s time, money and manpower on “surveys” to determine how many people are visiting the new mall.
