Now you may wonder how the one may lead to the other – and in my mind I had it all mapped out so now going to try and put it down in writing and make sense of it all.
Sitting at a stop and go at the seemingly never ending road works taking place on the South African roads between Gauteng and the Eastern Cape, where the weather always seems to be stifling hot – you witness varying stages of temperament amongst your fellow road users. Those who sit with their car running, to keep the air con working, drumming their fingers impatiently on their steering wheels until the seriously laid back roadworks employee saunters over to turn the signboard from stop to go and who then take off in an effort to get in front of any trucks that may slow them down even more, to those who open car doors, amble around the road works, often relieving their bladders against close by fence posts. I am one of the ones, that turn off my car engine, open the windows to enjoy the silence of the surrounds, feel some fresh air and just watch. And it was whilst watching that got my mind doing a abrupt stop in anger, when witnessing the passenger in the car in front of me, as the “go” was given, to casually open their car window and throw coke cans and KFC boxes out onto the roadside.
This brought my mind back to my last walk on the beach in Morgan Bay, which is 99% pristine clean, when I spotted something blue glinting in the morning sun and thinking had found some kind of magical treasure, to find an upturned bottle cap. Which I pocketed. Not so easy however to pocket the discarded trash on the side of the road.
My drive continued where all thoughts were going through my mind including the recent comments by an opposition political party pointing fingers at the DA for not cleaning up the city of Johannesburg and posting photos of roadside trash on Twitter to prove what a poor job was being done. How can they keep up with what I had just seen. All the while that these thoughts are going threw my mind, I am also experiencing some of the worst driving I have ever witnessed on our roads and I am surprised that the death toll on our roads is not even higher than the already unacceptable rate. So where do we begin.
From a simple bottle cap on the beach, to the horrific driving on our roads, all this points to total lawlessness and people just not being held accountable for their actions. Is it lack of education or laziness of just down right arrogance. Somehow we need to instill a sense of responsibility and pride, not only in our country but in ourselves. What makes a person who drives an expensive half million rand car, which is being kept spotlessly clean, think that there is nothing wrong with discarding their rubbish on the side of the road. Again I ask where do we start, where do we begin. With the massive drives we see in the media for recycling and saving our planet, surely we as a people should know better. This is when I despair of the couldn’t care less attitude of the human race. All I can do, as an individual, is try to set a good example, keep the laws of the road and pocket that bottle cap.
And don’t get me started on cigarette stompies……………
Diary of the peregrinating granny from South Africa 