I realise that a title like that means that some of you are 
completely with me, some of you are bewildered, some of you are feeling slightly disturbed and one or two of you (don’t you just love how I assume there are more than three people reading this blog?!) are saying “hang on, she’s mentioned robots before….”
For the uninitiated or the simply forgetful, robots in South Africa are what other people in other countries call traffic lights. According to Wikipedia, this is because they were first known as “robot policemen” when they were introduced to take over from real policemen in the role of directing traffic at busy junction. So, here are four things you really should know about robots…
1. The robots are where everything happens. This is where you go to sell stuff. So far the list of things we have seen
being sold at robots includes:
– the Big Issue
– bows and arrows (toy ones, I hasten to add! Although given that our local locksmith sells pink tasers, anything is possible.)
– mobile phone chargers
– coat hangers
– tax disc holders
– hats
– pink flamingos (not live – made from plastic)
– inflatables of all sorts for swimming
– net covers for keeping the flies off your food
– paintings
– newspapers
– joke sheets
– toys
… and that’s just the ones I remember.
You can also buy people at robots. Not slave trading, but people often stand at 
the robots with signs offering their services for casual labour, and we have also come across some enterprising people who had printed out little slips of paper with their contact details on and were giving them to motorists as they stop.
Don’t for one moment think that being in the middle lane of three will mean you escape the attentions of the sellers – here in Africa we think nothing of standing in the middle of the lanes, and work on the basis that once the traffic starts moving again, provided you stand fairly still and don’t move suddenly, people will notice you there on the edge of their lane and miss you.
2. The sequencing of the lights is different here to in the UK. 
In the UK, the lights go green, orange, red, orange, green. Here, we go green, orange, red, green. And that sudden switch from red to green takes us by surprise every time! We also have flashing green arrows (you have right of way, please turn), flashing orange arrows (you won’t have right of way for much longer so turn quickly) and flashing red lights. I’m not that sure why the flashing red lights happen. From time to time you will find a junction where the lights in all directions are flashing red, and people treat this like a four way stop (see below). If you are turning at some junctions your lights might go from green to orange to red, then immediately back to a green flashing arrow. You really do need to keep your wits about you.
3. South Africans have a natural advantage when the traffic lights fail. Due to the demand for electricity exceeding the capacity to supply it, we have a schedule of power outages known as “load shedding”. (Incidentally, this has given rise to the verb “to be shed”, as in “When are we being shed today?”) During outages, most robots {traffic lights} will go out, although there are one or two strategic junctions, ie. particularly hazardous, where the robots remain on. In the UK, this generally results in total chaos and survival of the most aggressive. South Africans take traffic light failure in their stride, partly because they are just to used to it, but mostly because they are already trained for what to do in this kind of situation by having always had to deal with the joys of the four way stop street. These are a regular feature of the roads in the USA as well, I believe, but I have yet to see one in the UK. The principle of a four way stop is simple: you move on in the order in which you arrive, and if in doubt, always give way to the taxi. So, when we have no traffic lights, we just pretend it’s a four way stop and everybody is happy.
4. Pedestrian crossings: We do have zebra crossings. Unlike in the UK, pedestrians on the zebra crossing do not have right of way. It is simply that they stand out better on the striped background and make it easier to miss (or hit) them. We also have push button pedestrian crossings at certain traffic light junctions. Somewhat disconcertingly, these operate on the basis that the little green man appears at the same time as the green light for traffic going in the same direction as pedestrians. Which means that drivers turning at a junction have to (theoretically) give way to people walking across the road. So that bold diagonal crossing that you can attempt at a UK traffic junction when you race the green man across the entire junction is completely out of the question here. It is entirely possible that the pedestrian lights work differently in the city centre, but here in the quiet seaside town of Fish Hoek, that’s how we roll.
African Crossroad 