Don’t expect them to be hiding in the bushes on the freeway. And you won’t get a chance to nickname them pork chops, rashers of bacon or eish-bein looking for lunch money.
Armed with hi-tech traffic monitoring systems on their vehicles that can scan cars up to 500m away, the National Traffic Police will take to the country’s roads this week targeting speedsters, drunk drivers and other traffic offenders.
Each vehicle is fitted with a number plate recognition system planted on the back of their massive 4x4s. With this they can scan your number plate as they drive in front of you, pick up all your outstanding traffic fines and road offences, and stop you on the spot.
Heading up the new super unit is former Johannesburg Metro Police Department operations head David Tembe.
“We are there to show some muscle. This is not a threat, it’s a promise,” warned Tembe on Monday.
He said the advanced number plate recognition system fitted in each of the 24 vehicles could scan several number plates at once.
“The ones we need to pull over will come up in red on the screen in the back of the car,” said Tembe.
“When we are driving in front of you, we will be able to scan your number plate and run it on our system to see if you have outstanding fines. If you say you have not received your AARTO offences, we have a printer on board, and we will print it out for you and present it to you there.”
Tembe said his officers would be subjected to random polygraph tests to curtail the problem of bribery among officers.
The National Traffic Police unit was set up by Transport minister S’bu Ndebele several months ago. Now they’re hitting the streets with a vengeance, and a zero-tolerance approach. They’re targeting motorists who intentionally disregard the rules of the road.
They will be based in Pretoria but their work will stretch across the country.
By August 1 they’ll be on the prowl 24 hours a day, with officers working three sets of eight-hour shifts.
Their peak hours will be Thursday nights, Friday nights, Saturday nights and Sunday mornings.
Motorists can identify the new unit by their vehicles – white 4x4s with blue and yellow chevrons, a gold star on the driver’s door and yellow markings on the bonnet.
The officers – all 300 of them – are dressed in blue uniforms similar to those of the SAPS.
There will be several units: a freeway unit, an anti-corruption unit and a special patrol unit.
Collins Letsoalo, acting chief executive officer of the Road Traffic Management Corporation, under which the unit falls, said they were an intervention unit.
The target of the force, in line with Ndebele’s mandate, is a 50 percent reduction in road fatalities by 2015.
“There is no overlap with other units,” said Letsoalo. “we have no (geographical restrictions). They will be complementing us.”
Despite the controversy around the Drager system, the officers will still use it to test the sobriety of motorists. Drawing blood is not ruled out, though.
“There is nothing illegal about using the Drager system. Until there is a ruling on the use of Drager as illegal, and I can’t use it, I will use it to enforce the law,” said Letsoalo.
Officers will work within the parameters of the National Road Traffic Act.
Tembe was part of a team that won several public safety awards, including a service excellence award for reducing road fatalities in Joburg. He was also given the Crimeline Award by 702 Talk Radio for effectively dealing with crime in the city. – The Star