The great trek

Its that time of the year, the Summer holidays and with brings half of Gauteng to the coast. The annual migration of the Vaalie begins now and lasts till mid Jan and they have short stint in April during Easter. The reason for my post is not to discourage visitors to our lovely province but probably to enlighten them on their journey down. My job allows me to travel to various parts of the province and today I traveled to Nquthu, its somewhere in the bundu's but I had to take the N3, which is the main artery linking Durban to Joburg to get there. I bemoan travelling on that road because of the high number of trucks that one is faced with when travelling up (i.e from Durban to the midlands) heading down isn't so bad as long as you keep to the speed limit.

Now, KZN is the one province in the country that has a zero tolerance on people who break the speed limit, yes I know many will get away this year by slipping the officer some Randela's but if you do get a cop who practices the law, you will get locked away. So if you want to speed, do it in Gauteng or the Free State... I'm joking, I don't endorse speeding, speed kills, for real, I've seen what happens when shit goes bad.

When traveling in my lovely province you will notice signs on the freeway saying "Freeway Being monitored by Average Speed Cameras", no these are not for decor. What they mean is that along the route they have placed cameras at certain points to track your speed. Now on my drive today I noticed many, many cars with GP number plates doing the same thing. Every time they went under the camera, they jammed the brakes and slowed down to 60kph, then once they passed it, they accelerated back to to Mach 1. Now, I'm not sure if its just these okes or everyone in Gauteng doesn't understand how these camera's work.

The camera itself doesn't detect your speed, hence its tiny. The only thing it picks up is the time, date and your number plate. When you pass the first one, it takes a picture of your car and records the exact time you passed, then when you pass the second camera it does the same thing. Then what happens is they take the two pictures, work out the time difference and do some grade 5 math to calculate if you've been speeding. Its not rocket science, I mean the cops are doing this. So I appeal to you all of those travelling, don't go full retard and brake like crazy when going past the cameras, it doesn't matter what speed you doing and the limit is either 120, 100 or 80, there is no reason for you to slow down to 60.

So to end it off, enjoy your holidays in KZN, it seriously is a great province and one I'm proud to live in! Be safe on the roads!

World Day of Remembrance

Every year 100's if not 1000's of lives are lost on South Africa's roads and many are left with life long injuries caused by accidents. Despite many campaigns and initiatives by government, the numbers accidents on our roads keep increasing by the year. Where in some cases the accidents are unavoidable, many could have been prevented as the most common causes are drivers who were speeding or driving under the influence of alcohol. Now it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that either of the two are dangerous, we have laws in place to prevent them! So what gives you or anyone the right to ignore them, especially when you are going to endanger the lives of other innocent motorists. The change has to come from the individual and that's the only way we can solve this problem.

18th November 2012 has been dubbed "World Day of Remembrance", it is a day that will be recognized internationally as a day we remember loved ones,  friends, family  and all whom were affected by a road traffic accident. Besides remembering the deceased, we will also help create awareness to the problem at hand, especially drinking and driving.

If you live in Durban, the guys at one of the cities most popular restaurants, Spiga D'oro along with Anna Savage who is one of the creators of the iHeart Market will be hosting an event on the 18th of November, the venue still remains a secret buto the promises to be a great one with plenty of good food, art, music and craft. Prior to the day, they will be hosting other events to generate a hype for the event, first of which being next Tuesday, the 23rd of October 2012 where a tweetup will be held at the Upstairs Bar above Spiga. Here you can meet and spend the evening with the people you mainly communicate with via your phone or a computer, at the same time you can tweet about the event using the hashtag #rememberme. You can also join the facebook fan page, this event is not limited to people on social media so spread the word to family and friends and lets make this a great day to remember those we have lost.

Those details again:

Date: 23rd October 2012
Time: 18h30
Dress: Casual
Food: Snacks will be supplied by Spiga
Bring: your phone
Hashtag: #rememberme


...btw, if you're drinking that night, don't forget to call a cab for your journey home ;)