The city of Cape Town is stepping up its fight against the worst traffic offenders.
It has roped in a team of external investigators to track down the biggest culprits in a bid to recoup more than R600 million in outstanding fines.
The worst offenders collectively owe the city R650m. This is from 1.5 million fines with warrants.
JP Smith, the mayoral committee member for safety and security, set up the city’s first traffic fine recovery task team in August.
NOT AFTER ‘SOFT’ TARGETS
At present, the recovery rate is just under 50 percent.
Smith said the city was not after “soft targets” and the team was tracing only serial offenders.
He said the task team had now approved projects which would drastically increase the recovery rate.
These include:
-A team of external researchers who are assisting in tracking down the worst offenders.
-Thirty more traffic cops to increase Operation Reclaim.
-Doubling camera equipment and other technology to nab offenders on city roads.
”With all these initiatives, we will increase Operation Reclaim and our recovery rate,” Smith said.
The provincial Department of Transport and Public Works has also approved a system whereby serial offenders will not be able to renew their licences.
WORST OFFENDERS LISTED
In April Smith told the Cape Argus the city had handed the provincial department a list of the worst offenders. He said it had approached the department to bar these motorists from applying for licence renewals.
Smith said they would start with the top 100 worst offenders and work their way through the rest.
These motorists face immediate arrest if they try to renew their vehicle or driving licences at city traffic offices. This is aimed at bringing those with large amounts of outstanding warrants to book.
The increase in equipment comes from a new tender the city awarded to its service provider dealing with fines. The tender is set to come into effect in the next few weeks.
When approved, the amount of automatic number plate recognition will increase. This will allow officers to detect “wanted vehicles”. Smith said there would be capacity to detect warrants “at the roadside”. On the team of investigators, he said they would be working with the city’s Special Investigation Unit (SIU).
“This refers to the members of SIU in safety and security whom we have asked to assist with Operation Reclaim to pursue the top offenders and persons with large number of outstanding warrants.”
-Cape Argus