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Cars held up in a traffic jam on Hill Road, Sandton, in Johannesburg, South Africa, in June.
Cars held up in a traffic jam in the Sandton area of Johannesburg. Photograph: Ivo Gonzalez/Globo via Getty Images
Cars held up in a traffic jam in the Sandton area of Johannesburg. Photograph: Ivo Gonzalez/Globo via Getty Images

No stopping Johannesburg's traffic light thieves

This article is more than 13 years old
Hundreds of signals smashed open for valuable sim cards inside – causing car crashes and costing thousands to fix

As its high walls, electric fences and armed security patrols demonstrate, Johannesburg is well prepared for thwarting the ingenuity of burglars in most situations. But no one thought about traffic lights.

Hundreds of lights have been damaged by thieves targeting the machines' sim cards, which are then used to make mobile phone calls worth millions of South African rand.

More than two-thirds of 600 hi-tech lights have been affected over the past two months, according to the Johannesburg Roads Agency, causing traffic jams, accidents and frustration for motorists.

The traffic lights use sim cards, modem and use GPRS to send and receive information, a system intended to save time and manpower by alerting the road agency's head office when any lights malfunction. According to Thulani Makhubela, a spokesman for the agency, the robberies have been "systematic and co-ordinated", possibly by a syndicate. An internal investigation has now been launched.

"They know which signals to target," Makhubela added. "They clearly have information."

Each traffic light will cost about 22,000 rand (£2,095) to repair, with the total bill likely to be near 9m rand (£857,000)

Makhubela said: "All the broken lights that have been assessed so far – about 150 – have been vandalised."

He said some traffic lights damaged last year were fixed, only to be damaged again. "It's like someone has a vendetta against the JRA. They were vandalised again with such vengeance."

Makhubela said the road agency was meeting its suppliers to discuss how to make the traffic lights more secure. It has blocked all the stolen sim cards so that they can not be used to make further calls.

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