Congestion at Sightings

[Richprins]

A week ago driving this road , and suddenly ,roadblock......have to look underneath the vehicles to see what is in front.


After a while one vehicle pull over to the other side and we where able to see "them" at the drift.


Not the best photo's but just what we could manage in the spirit of the moment and time available.At that time cars where piling up and we make turns to drive forward and back to see (like a peep show).


Then the Lions left and so the people's. Due to the cellphone and radio technology there where 22 open safari vehicles and 10 other cars at the end of the sighting.

[Flutterby]

In my opinion these safari vehicles are the biggest problem in Kruger!!

[Twigga]

Lovely!

Another reason why I love the North - limited or NO cell reception at some places!

[Lisbeth]

Don't the safari vehicles have the radio anyway?

[Twigga]

Don't the safari vehicles have the radio anyway?

As far as I know you have to have a permit to have a radio in Kruger, I guess some operators have it illegally, or "hack" into the frequencies

[nan]

it's what I was thinking

[Richprins]

This from a senior OSV operator:



Here's the thing, the worst of the problems are not the open vehicles at this stage, its all the visitors subscribing to Kruger Sightings and the availability of signal all over the park.



There are currently 212 open vehicles registered to operate in the park. Now working on the assumption that only 60% of them are working on any given day due to the nature of the business, that’s 127 vehicles in the park at any given time, or if they are full. This potentially has taken off the roads in Kruger 30 coaches off the roads, an additional 320 cars off the road if each car took 4 passengers, which we know is most often not the case, these normally travel in twos in which case we would have an additional 635 cars on the road.


These 127 vehicles are relatively organised, and yes communication between them is vital as not to block sightings, yet it still happens, but we are working on it. I for one if I hear there a sighting, and a lot of activity, I tend to stay away, as I am not a lion hunter “Leeujagters” as 90% of people tend to do when they get in to the hype of thing bush Its natural, nothing wrong with it. The general idea is that we do not stay on the sighting for long, we tend to let our people get their pictures and move on because there are other people that want to see things as well. We also generally have places to go, meet for breakfast, meet for lunch, meet the bus at the correct time etc etc.



Unfortunately they will become targets because of their size and colour. There is also a sense of “jealousy” from non users, which is understandable.



Getting back to the point of radios. Yes the radios are there, no they are not illegal, they are there for the purpose of communication, and that is what they are used for. They are generally not used to report sightings, more the general situation around sightings if it is a sensitive one.

[nan]

thank you for all these informations

[RobertT]

This from a senior OSV operator:

Here's the thing, the worst of the problems are not the open vehicles at this stage, its all the visitors subscribing to Kruger Sightings and the availability of signal all over the park.

A lot of these OSV operators are also subscribing to these apps and groups. The amount of People is not the problem in the jams, so don't understand the logic of they have taken 30 coaches off the road, a coach can take about 60 people so will take 6 OSV's off the road and we will have 1 vehicle at a sighting (granted it is a big vehicle), the problem is the amount of vehicles. Was in park over Dec and came across lion sighting on s21 (think it is) near rhenosterkoppies. There were about 6 vehicles there with 2 OSV, we had a quick look, few pics and decided to move on as I knew what was coming. For the rest of the drive along that road there were just vehicles and at least every 3rd vehicle was an OSV and they were driving with a purpose. Although there may only be 127 OSV vehicles in the park at a given time, they are concentrated around Pretoriuskop, afsaal, skuks and Lower Sabie , with radio communication they all tend to go to the same sightings around the area and because of their time restrictions they will be at the sightings at relatively the same time or there abouts adding to the congestion. If they didn't have radio comms or follow apps, 75% of those OSV's would not have been at the sighting, a lot of general public follow the sightings apps, but I reckon the percentage is less of general public who would drive so far out of their way for the sighting. The OSV person is kind of obliged to as they work on tips and the more successful their trip the bigger the tip.

[RobertT]

[quote="dup

Then the Lions left and so the people's. Due to the cellphone and radio technology there where 22 open safari vehicles and 10 other cars at the end of the sighting.

[/quote]

22 OSV and 10 other cars. These odds are the wrong way round as there should be more vehicles than OSV's on the road, so not sure how the OSV operator could say it is the public using sightings apps that's the problem.