The Arrive Alive Website received an email from a concerned citizen who pleads for stricter enforcement and a clampdown on illegal quad bike driving in Kosi Bay. We would like to share the email:
“Each holiday season, a bunch of tourist and visitors from all over visit Kosi Bay, Manguzi/ KwaNgwanase for a vacation. They bring their fishing gear, tents and toys such as quad bikes.
Many times the people in the community have complained about visitors and some local people from the surrounding lodges (including Kosi Bay Lodge, Kosi Bay Cabins, Herbst Cottages) have driven their Quad Bikes up and down the roads (all public roads) and through the veld and up and down the eco-sensitive dunes and protected areas of Ezimvilo KZN.
As all my research has found I now know that Quad Bikes are an Off Road Vehicle, (meaning that it is not permitted on any road, and was designed to use “OFF” of the roads).
Therefore a Quad bike is not allowed on any public road = by definition a public road is any road used by the public, whether it is paved, tarred, dirt, gravel or sand. A public road is also any road leading to a business, home, lodge, restaurant, shop, centre, church or hospital.
Therefore in the residential area of any lodge, or home, all the roads outside the private property of any owner of a house or lodge or business is considered public road.
In this case, Quad bikes are not allowed on any public road, (as it is not licensed to be on any public road) and may be confiscated by the South African Police Service if found on any public Road.
The SAPS of Manguzi in KwaNgwanase (Zululand, KZN) have given out pamphlets regarding the illegal use of Quad Bikes on the roads in Kosi Bay, yet many visitors and lodges fail to adhere to these rules.
From a road and safety aspect, this should be adhered to immediately as many children suffer serious injuries from Quad Bike accidents. The department of Traffic and Safety should enforce their safety and road rules and be more visible in and around Kosi Bay and between the lodges where the Quad Bikes are often found.
Often the riders of the Quad bikes are young children, driving alone on the quad bikes, on the road shared by other drivers of bakkies, drivers with boats and trailers and often drunk drivers coming back from a day at the beach or lakes.
These children and adults on the Quad Bikes almost never have helmets on and behave as if our residential area is their personal playground.
Kosi Bay Lodge seems to encourage these kids to go drive Outside of the Lodge on their Quad Bikes, due to the fact that they are noisy and damage the roads within the property. Yet they don’t care about the rest of the community and the roads outside their own property which the rest of the community, the public and all visitors and guests have to use on a daily basis to get to work, to school and to their homes.
Please help the SAPS to do something to help protect our area, to help protect and maintain our roads, and to keep these children and passengers on the Quad Bikes safe and out of traffic.
This is a desperate appeal to the Department of Road Traffic and Safety to STOP Quad bikes from using public roads, damaging public roads for the local community and visitors, degrading the standards of the vegetation, destroying the eco sensitive nature of the area, and putting youngsters and adults alike at risk for serious accidents and injuries when driving carelessly on the public roads without helmets, without driving permits or without a registered and license roadworthy vehicle.”
We would like to urge quad bike riders and 4×4 drivers to view the following sections:
Quad bikes
• Quad Bike Safety
• Quad24
• Quad Bike Insurance and Accidents
4×4 Vehicles