Drunk motorists’ cars could soon be impounded on Cape Town roads. The Western Cape government is set to approve the city’s new stringent traffic bylaw.
Unlicensed drivers, taxis and street racers will not be spared. This week, the mayoral committee for safety and security, councillor JP Smith and chair of the safety and security portfolio, councillor Mzwakhe Nqavashe, announced the provincial government had accepted the bylaw.
Nqavashe said Road Traffic Act, promulgated in 1996, no longer covered new driving habits. He said the city’s own traffic bylaw was promulgated in 2010.
“Now 12 years later there have been more changes, and our city is again in need of improved legislation. After listening to the concerns of the public ... the multiparty committee put in several years of work to fully exercise our powers as contained in the constitution. The final steps of this process were to seek approval from the Western Cape government in this new traffic bylaw draft,” he said.
Smith said once approved, the bylaw “will now provide a lot more authority to our traffic services, metro police and law enforcement in bringing back law and order as well as improved safety to our 12,000km of roads within the municipality”.
“Among other things, this legislation will now take harsh action against those who have continued to show complete disregard for the safety of other road users, including those operating in the taxi industry, those partaking in illegal street racing activities, as well as those who fail to correctly display number plates,” he said.
“This new bylaw now adds improved enforcement mechanisms, including that of instant vehicle impoundment. Once finalised, our various enforcement services will receive further training on how to fully use all aspects of this new legislation. Affected communities who have long been calling for improved enforcement can rest assured that such relief can be welcomed within the near future.”
Smith said the traffic department was inundated with complaints from suburbs around the CBD, Sea Point, Camps Bay and Hout Bay, of how luxury sports cars wheelspin and perform constantly over weekends.
“The illegal street racing genre brought about by the action-packed blockbuster movie that first screened in 2001, involved a script where illegal street racers would compete with each other and the loser would forfeit ownership of their vehicle. Ironically now all street racers caught competing, irrespective of the outcome will result in their vehicles now being seized by the state.”
He said anyone with a flagrant disregard for the law often broke it on more serious offences as well.
“Just last month, our metro police pursued a vehicle for running a red light and once the runaway vehicle had been brought to a stop, it was discovered the vehicle had been stolen. The occupants were arrested and handed over and the vehicle recovered, all from acting upon a motorist who had ignored a traffic signal,” he said.
“This bylaw is a huge achievement for our municipality, as it effectively allows us now to expand our enforcement exponentially, in support of SAPS. Obviously, there will be a few who understand there is now a definite consequence to their current disregard for the law. Those who are not able to see the bigger picture, are expected to make noise on various online forums.”
Smith said it would take about three months to train the city staff to use the bylaw. He said: “We will start by training the ‘ghost squad’ in the taxi unit and so forth immediately. So that we can start dealing with your most frequent offenders, your drag racers and your public transport vehicles.”
Smith said impounded vehicles would be kept for three months.
“The impounded vehicles will remain until the end of the associated criminal prosecution and or until all compliance aspects have been met in full. The vehicles that are not collected within three months, will be sold to defray expenses,” he said.
Smith said Cape Town was the first municipality in SA to come up with such a bylaw.
“If you go to some other municipalities, even where the ANC is in control, they are copying and pasting huge sections and sometimes the entirety of our bylaws,” he said.
“So you can expect that some portions of those bylaws will be reflected in othermunicipalities soon.”
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