How many men does it take to change a (traffic) light bulb...?

In the midst of a particularly long and harrowing commute home, I came upon this scene which caught my eye and tickled my sense of irony.

So how many men DOES it take to change a traffic light bulb? In Grayston Drive in Sandton, the answer appears to be 15.....

There's a hole in my road...

I am not exactly sure what there is a shortage of... Man power, talent, tar mac or budget...

There appears to be an over abundance of contractors working for the local council in my area who can make holes. Some of the most fantastic holes you have ever seen. And with such speed that you would be astounded.

These holes can very easily become trenches - long, vast tranches the likes of which have not been seen since the Second World War. Beautiful tranches. And to their credit, as soon as they have placed the wire, or pipe or conduit in the hole or trench that they have made, these same people are very quick to refill it with the original gravel that it used to contain.

But there is one small ingredient missing... The tar mac to repair the hole completely and return the road surface to its original state.

There is such a marvellous trench on my commute to work, and for 3 weeks I have watched as every day hundreds of cars slow to walking pace to negotiate crossing this trench, and every day it gets a little deeper, as no one has yet closed it up and repaired the hole with tar mac.

Fortunately it has not rained yet - else we would have probably lost a lot more gravel than we already have...

It's strange - all it would take was a final step to repair the road, and for some reason it hasn't been or cannot be done.

Extreme Makeover

I was a little late in heading out of the house this morning, and so was treated to a "slightly" longer commute - the odd 30 minutes loinger than normal.

What I did notice is that there appears to be an extreme shortage of TIME for people in the morning, because the number of poor women I saw who were seemingly forced to do their make up in the car, it was clear that they had no time to do this at home before they left.

So my question has to be really, if it is too dangerous for me to drive while talking on a mobile phonem how come it is safer to be driving while doing your mascara? (or using an eye liner pencil in the traffic)?

This certainly is the Land of the Extreme Makeover....

How to drive in Jozi

There is an old phrase that goes: “Only in South Africa…” and usually it precedes some absolutely preposterous story involving a sequence of events that would be far too unrealistic to ever appear true. However, as the phrase says, only in South Africa could these events actually take place.

It has come to my attention that the rules of driving are slightly different in Johannesburg than to anywhere else around the world. What follows is based on some personal experiences from commutes around JHB in the past week. As I said at the start – only in South Africa:

Condition of motor vehicle.
Overall vehicle condition is not considered. If you car can move forward in some way, then it is allowed on the road. Seemingly engine power is not the only means of propulsion – pushing your vehicle will also count. I have seen a few taxis being pushed by their passengers along the road. Well – the petrol price is rising, and cut backs MUST be made!!!!

Vehicle Lights – naturally, there are two parts to this – back lights and front lights.
Back lights: these are completely optional. Vehicles do not have to make themselves known to other users of the road via back lights – rather the onus is on other users of the road to see these invisible black vehicles in the dark.

Front lights: these are governed by a simple rule “The more the better” This has two major advantages. Firstly it helps you find the vehicles you have not taken back lights as an optional extra. (See item above) Second, it is a form of social status – the more lights you have the better your social standing in the community.

Overall: cars are governed by an “average” rule. Provided the AVERAGE number of working lights across both back and front of the car is about right, you will be fine.


Road markings
Apparently these are irrelevant. Seemingly some kind of massive nationwide painting experiment to test the endurance of some paints.
Thus no clear adherence is applied to any indication, information or rule that these painted road markings might be trying to convey. Fortunately, some paints are better at enduring the experiment than others it appears.

Driving on the left hand side
This is such a British way of drive, and so constrictive.
Fortunately I found two enterprising taxi drivers the other day who were sharp enough to notice that the far side pavement was open, whereas the left hand side of the road they were driving on was congested. Thus they made use of this open pavement – just GENIUS use of available land!!!!

Traffic lights
Johannesburg traffic lights have the usual three colours, but they appear to convey a slightly different message than I have been used to in the UK.
GREEN: Proceed at own pace. (Note – watch out for FROGGER players – see below)
AMBER: Proceed making use of accelerator and hooter to raise your profile to other road users.
RED: - this appears to be FROGGER mode. Whilst red would usually require vehicles to come to a stand still, FROGGER mode allows a vehicle to inch its way across a road, while avoiding traffic moving at perpendicular angle to the direction being travelled – much like the traditional computer game of the same name.