How vile to denigrate the hard work of flag wavers who ensure the safety of road maintenance crews and road users as if they were parasitic leeches  who produce "diddly squat and can cheaply be replaced by machines. The author should try standing in the sun for hours, days on end doing what they do, to earn  his piece of bread. SANRAL highways are well maintained, verges mowed and your rubbish is being picked up over thousands of kilometres by humans who need to make a living. Machines would be stolen or break down. I don' t hear the author from Knysna complaining that firefighters sit on their bums most of the time doing diddly squat and that a helicopter could do a better job fighting fires, no , he heaps praise on their once a year efforts because they helped save his precious arrogant etc...