Victim De Lille warns other motorists

December 27 2013
By Jade Otto

 

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inlsa

Mayor Patricia de Lille is the latest victim of a smash and grab at the notorious Vanguard Drive intersection. Photo: Mxolisi Madela

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Cape Town - Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille’s annual leave got off to a hair-raising start when she was a victim of a smash and grab at the notorious N2 and Vanguard Driver intersection.

De Lille was driving alone from Cape Town to a friend in Rylands when she took the Vanguard Drive exit at about 6pm on Christmas Eve.

At the traffic light, she noticed two young men. One walked past her to the back of her private BMW 328 and back to the front again. Seconds later, her passenger side window was smashed.

“It happened in a split second,” De Lille said.

She said the men made off with her handbag which was on the floor on the passenger side of the vehicle. Her watch, R3 000 in cash, cellphone and credit cards were stolen.

“I was so shocked I did not know what to do. The robot changed and cars hooted,” De Lille said.

Metro police officers on Vanguard Drive gave chase but no one was arrested because the suspects disappeared into the Langa area.

A case was opened at Bonteheuwel police station and transferred to Bishop Lavis police.

Police spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Andre Traut said the police were aware of the incident and it was under investigation.

Traut urged motorists to exercise caution when they approached robots. He advised them not stop to near the vehicle in front to avoid being “boxed in and ensure an easy getaway”.

“Conceal valuables, don’t leave cellphones, tablets and laptops on the seat in easy view of would-be criminals,” Traut said.

De Lille advised women, especially because they were seen as soft targets, to place their bags in the boot instead.

“I would like to take this unfortunate opportunity to warn all motorists to take extra care when travelling this festive season.

“Ensure your valuables are out of sight, remain aware of your surroundings and keep your doors locked,” De Lille said.

Traut said that while police were aware of the Vanguard Drive intersection as a hot spot, he did not want to identify other areas of concern because “crime patterns constantly shifted”.

jade.otto@inl.co.za

Cape Argus

Hundreds dead but traffic peak only expected in next few days

Sapa | 22 December, 2013 13:19

File photo.
Image by: LULAMILE FENI © Daily Dispatch

A traffic peak is expected on major routes just before Christmas, as people head to their holiday destinations, the Road Traffic Management Corporation said on Sunday.

No major accidents had been reported by Sunday, and traffic volumes were still normal, but major delays were expected on Monday and Tuesday, said Thato Mosena.

More than 600 lives have been lost in over 600 road accidents in December, Transport Minister Dipuo Peters said on Friday.

Traffic volumes were expected to increase again next Tuesday, just before New Year, and again on January 5 and 6, when people were expected to return from their holidays.

Mosena said a high traffic volumes were experienced when 1000 to 2000 or more vehicles an hour were travelling on a route.

She said more than 2000 vehicles an hour were expected during peak holiday times.

The N1 north between Pretoria, Polokwane and the Beit Bridge border post was expected to be busy, as was the N2 to and from Somerset West and Cape Town.

A lot of traffic coming into Durban from Johannesburg was expected on the N3.

High volumes of vehicles travelling on routes between Mangaung and Cape Town and between Pretoria, Nelspruit and Lebombo were also expected. N3 Toll Concession spokeswoman Andy Visser said on Sunday morning that about 1000 vehicles an hour had been heading out of Gauteng at the tollgates.

About the same number of vehicles was heading out of KwaZulu-Natal, but more, at 1100, were entering the province.

Limpopo roads and transport spokesman Jimmy Machaka said five people had died in accidents in the province since Friday night.

This brought to 39 the death toll since the start of the month. There had been 178 accidents since then.

He said two of the people who died at the weekend were drivers and two were pedestrians. Details of the fifth death, which occurred after midnight in Polokwane, were still being compiled.

He said a traffic official was seriously injured when he was hit by a car a car while conducting a road block in Groblersdal.

Machaka said that many of the accidents were caused by speeding and overtaking in reckless situations.

He urged pedestrians to wear clothing which made then visible to drivers while walking at night.

Bikers beat last year’s best despite all the ‘red tape’

 

• 25 Nov 2013
• Cape Argus
• Chelsea Geach CADET NEWS AGENCY chelsea.geach@inl.co.za
• From page 1 BIKERS and teddy bears zoomed through the city in their thousands yesterday on the annual Toy Run for children’s charities.

But the 8 000 motorcyclists who rode down to Maynardville Park in Wynberg were in for a big surprise.

Strict security at the beer tent caused the crowd to dry up hours before usual, and organisers had to scramble for water, electricity and toilets at the last minute as the council facilities were out of order.

“The red tape is strangling this event,” said Toy Run vice-chairwoman Glynis Coetzee, who has organised it for 12 years. “It’s getting harder and harder to hold this event because of overzealous regulations.”

Coetzee said the toys and funds generated by the run benefited50 000 children in 300 charities across the Cape.

Coetzee said her team was granted access to the Maynardville Park late on Friday, only to find the water, electricity and toilets were not working: “The charity then has to go to the expense to make up for poor services.”

Parents had to abandon either their beer or their children as no alcohol was allowed outside the small beer tent enclosure, and no under-18s were allowed inside.

Paul Hendricks, who has done the run since 1981, said there were no rides or waterslides to keep children occupied. While a band played to an empty arena, parents smuggled their young children over the fence of the beer garden.

Sizing up the trucks full of toys, Coetzee said it looked as if yesterday’s haul had beaten last year’s best of 34 000.

The city was asked for comment yesterday and said it was only likely comment on the matter today.

MOTORISTS DRIVE SCOT-FREE

• 8 Nov 2013
• Cape Argus
• Anél Lewis METRO WRITER anel.lewis@inl.co.za

Thousands of arrest warrants ‘going stale’ because they are not being signed off

From page 1 ABOUT 44 000 motorists are driving “scot-free” because the courts have only been able to deal with about 500 cases this year, says the City of Cape Town.

PICTURE: ROSS JANSENCAUGHT Officer John Bezuidenhout, fines a driver for crossing a solid line

JP Smith, mayoral committee member for safety and security, said: “It’s an absolute crisis. These are large fines and motorists are told to appear in court but they can’t because of the backlog.”

He said thousands of arrest warrants, worth about R300 million, were “going stale” because they were not being signed off by magistrates.

There were currently about 430 000 warrants of arrest of which only 207 000 had been signed and received.

The city is so concerned about the court backlog that it is in talks with the Department of Justice and the provincial government about appointing additional magistrates to hear the cases and work through the backlog - and has offered to pay for them from the city’s coffers.

Smith blamed new national regulations, that called for all motorists who exceeded the speed limit by 30km or more to appear in court, for adding to the crisis.

“Unfortunately this has had a huge impact on our courts as a large percentage of cases need to go to court.”

To deal with this, the city had already employed extra prosecutors and administrative staff from its legal services directorate, said Smith. “Now we are waiting for the magistrates.” Negotiations with the Department of Justice were “slow”, the city said.

A report on traffic fines submitted yesterday to the safety and security portfolio committee, said the city can only take strong action against an offender when a warrant of arrest has been issued.

Traffic chief Heathcliff Thomas said: “Unfortunately the motoring public don’t treat fines with importance but with complete contempt because there are no consequences.”

Marius van Tonder, of safety and security, said: “A warrant of arrest is the last step in a long process where the offender chooses to ignore the fine notices and reminders set, as well as a summons to appear in court which is personally served.”

It is also one of several reasons why the city’s income from traffic fines has dropped by a third, from R143 040 297 in the 2011/2012 financial year to R99 381 526 for 2012/2013.

Van Tonder said there was a “worsening culture” of non-payment.

Other reasons for the sharp decline included the use of visible traffic officers rather than camera fines and technical problems with a new system which delayed the sending out of fine notices and printing of summonses.

He said the substantial reduction and withdrawal of fines by court officials had cost the city nearly R10m in lost revenue. Of the 118 000 presentations to the court about fines, 25 000 were withdrawn.

Van Tonder said the department was also hamstrung by the “poor accuracy” of address data on the eNatis system, which made it difficult to post fines and contact offenders.

Smith is working with Transport MEC Robin Carlisle on new legislation that would “close the loopholes” that help motorists dodge their fines.

He said motorists would soon have to provide Fica-style proof of address when registering their vehicles, to deter them from giving false details.

Officials would soon be able to impound the vehicles of motorists with outstanding fines, and there would be greater visibility with the introduction of traffic reservists.

Meanwhile the city is starting to see the results of its “admin mark”, introduced in March 2013 to penalise errant offenders.

With the admin mark, a motorist with an outstanding warrant of arrest will have a block placed in his account, meaning he won’t be able to renew his car licence, or do any transaction that involves the eNatis system anywhere in the country.

Since the introduction of the admin mark, the income from postal payments from traffic fines at Gallows Hill has increased from R300 000 a month to R1.8 million. “As a direct result, the income at that office has quadrupled,” said Thomas.

Smith said: “There is no lack of access to places of payment. If you are not paying it is because you can’t be bothered.”

Operation Reclaim, which targets motorists with outstanding warrants of arrest, has led to the arrest of more than 16 000 people between June and October.

Smith said the city had recorded nearly a half a million traffic offences in the months between July and September, and made more than 18 500 arrests. Most of these offences – more than 257 000 – were for speeding.

Others areas of concern include the high number of unlicensed drivers and vehicles on the road, and the number of people caught driving without wearing seatbelts.

COSTLY FALLOUT OF CRASH CHAOS ON N1

Driver remains unconscious

THE CRASH on the N1 that brought Cape Town to a standstill last week is estimated to have cost commuters as much as R36 million as they were forced to wait in gridlocked traffic – missing flights, meetings and appointments.

PICTURE: JASON BOUDROAD CLOSED A truck lost a 12-ton barge when it struck a bridge on the N1 outbound near Paarden Eiland last Tuesday. The barge landed on a Nissan bakkie, which was behind the truck

During a debriefing on the incident at the Traffic Management Centre in Goodwood yesterday, incident co-ordinator Dale Hillebrand reconstructed the minutes after a 12- ton barge fell off a truck and crushed a bakkie on Table Bay Boulevard last Tuesday.

The driver of the bakkie, Scott Gonzalez, 51, is still unconscious in Groote Schuur Hospital.

A hospital spokesman said his condition was stable.

Hillebrand said the heavy load slid off the back of the truck at 2.28pm after clipping a section of the Lower Church Street bridge over the N1.

The freeway’s five outbound lanes were quickly closed off and authorities began diverting rush-hour traffic exiting the CBD.

As rescue personnel tried to free Gonzalez from his vehicle, commuters found themselves stuck in standstill traffic in some cases for hours as they sought alternative routes out of the city.

The N1 was closed for three hours.

Hillebrand insisted authorities had dealt with the situation quickly and efficiently, but he did not downplay the impact the crash had on Cape Town’s transport infrastructure.

“As a rule of thumb, we can work out that the accident cost commuters between R10m to R1m an hour.”

He said the crash had caused “chaos” in the city, with normal traffic flow resuming only four hours later.

Hillebrand said all five lanes were closed to create space for the cranes to lift the barge from the bakkie.

The city’s mayoral committee member for safety and security JP Smith, said the crash and clearing of the wreckage will cost the council R30 000.

“In total, the direct charges – for the damage to bridge and calling out EMS personnel – will amount to R100 000.”

Smith said the truck company, Crescendo Trucking, of Saldanha, would have to foot the bill because the driver had been travelling in contravention of his permit.

“It was an inexperienced driver, who did not know what he was doing. He should not have been on that route.”

In the end, it was just a 10cm difference that plunged the city into chaos, as the height of the truck’s load exceeded that of the bridge.

But despite widespread criticism of how the city handled the crash, Smith said he was happy with how emergency services and authorities had reacted.

“I don’t think it could have been any quicker,” he said.

However, the city was looking at a range of possible improvements in its handling of big collisions.

These would include the provision of more traffic cones for officials, public education on alternate routes, using variable message signs to give better guidance on alternative routes and accidents; and the acquisition of an additional heavy tow-truck.

“I have told all those involved in the operation give it a rating out of 10. I would suggest an eight or a nine,” said Smith.

'We'll take away your car!' - cops

October 23 2013 at 08:41am
By Kieran Legg

Comment on this story

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David Ritchie

Transport and public works MEC Robin Carlisle speaks to the driver of a car that was pulled over for speeding at an average of 131km/h in a 120km/h zone. The driver was later arrested after blowing over the limit on a breathalyser.

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Drivers who flout the rules of the road could soon get the “cellphone treatment” as Western Cape provincial traffic services review the possibility of confiscating vehicles for anything from driving without a licence to speeding.

This follows the introduction of regulations that enable traffic officials to “discontinue” cars found being driven without number plates.

Coupled with the confiscation of cellphones from drivers found chatting at the wheel, this represents the latest in a series of regulations as part of the provincial transport department’s new “no nonsense” approach.

For transport and public works MEC Robin Carlisle the impounding of cars is a logical and appropriate punishment for traffic offenders.

He said the current fine system was too lenient and did little to discourage drivers from speeding or disobeying traffic laws.

“What’s a R250 speeding fine to someone in a R300 000 car? Nothing, they just don’t care.”

This car was fined for an expired licence disc. Picture: Armand Hough

INLSA

Last weekend traffic authorities prosecuted more than 1600 motorists for driving over the speed limit in the Western Cape. Provincial traffic chief Kenny Africa said one had been caught driving at 185km/h in a 120km/h zone.

Carlisle said: “It’s frustrating, and it’s all too common. You can clearly see that something needs to be done.”

He said the confiscation of cellphones had proved effective.

“While the evidence isn’t exactly empirical, traffic officials are telling me they pull over far fewer drivers for talking on their phones.”

It is this same system Carlisle hopes to extend to vehicles belonging to traffic offenders.

“Give someone a fine and they wave it off,” he said.

A motorist is photographed driving in the city in a vehicle without number plates. Picture: Armand Hough

INLSA

Take away their car, and you will see them start hurting.”

The details of how the impounding will work have not been ironed out yet. A team was looking at where there was legal legroom to extend impounding to vehicles outside the public transport and business sector.

Carlisle remained positive that a new set of regulations would be introduced soon.

As it stands, under the Road Traffic Act 93 of 96 private vehicles may be impounded for:

A parking offence causing obstruction.

Any vehicle deemed to be abandoned on a public road.

A motorist has her cellphone confiscated during a cellphone confiscation operation. Picture: David Ritchie

INLSA

A vehicle not displaying any form of identification.

Buses and taxis can also be impounded for not having a permit or operating contrary to a permit.

Carlisle was adamant that there was legal room to broaden the grounds for impoundment.

He said the aim would be to confiscate cars for up to a week, depending on the nature of the offence, which could include:

Driving without a valid licence.

Driving an unlicensed or unregistered vehicle.

Driving a car that was not roadworthy.

Excessive speeding.

“The new regulations should be up for public participation by November at the earliest, but it could be pushed up until February,” said Carlisle.

MAKING SPACE

The city and provincial traffic services are in the process of establishing 10 new pounds across the Western Cape over the next three years.

Carlisle said despite the shortage of pounds, there would always be space to expand and cope with the demands of the new regulations.

The city’s mayoral committee member for safety and security, JP Smith, said impounding was the only way to ensure that offenders were forced to face up to their transgressions, and pay to reclaim their vehicles from the pound instead of just evading fines.

“We have seen minibus taxis routinely ignoring traffic fines and evading paying them.”

“We have also seen a steady increase of unlicensed drivers and unlicensed vehicles because the criminal justice system is simply not effectively bringing people to book once they have received a traffic fine for these offences.”

Automobile Association spokesman Graeme Scala supported the idea of stricter punishment for errant motorists, saying the current fine system merely turned speeding drivers into “revenue generators rather than improving road safety”.

But he said the new regulations would mean nothing without proper enforcement.

“We’ve seen it time and time again: these new traffic regulations are introduced and then nothing happens.

They must be visibly policed for more than just a month; it needs to happen year round. Otherwise it’s just talk.”

He said confiscating vehicles would take far more man hours than retroactively issuing traffic fines.

“Without a doubt, this type of regulation would improve the safety for motorists on our roads. I think that if they are introduced, what we will see is drivers completely re-evaluating the way they drive.”

ZERO TOLERANCE IN IN CANADA, DOWN UNDER

The Western Cape government is not the first to consider a zero-tolerance approach to speeders.

Since 2010, traffic authorities in British Columbia, Canada, have been allowed to impound cars belonging to the province’s top traffic offenders for as long as a week.

Repeat offenders can lose their cars for as long as two months.

The province has strict rules on speeding, with anybody caught travelling 40km/h or more over the posted speed limit – which is the legal definition of “excessive speeding” in the province - liable to have their cars impounded for up to 48 hours.

This increases exponentially for every prior traffic offence on the driver’s record.

Australia also has a strict approach when it comes to traffic offenders. While cars can be impounded for a variety of reasons, they are mainly confiscated when the driver is caught speeding (40km/h over the limit), causing undue noise or is involved in a road rage incident.

Vehicles can also be impounded if the motorist is caught driving without a licence, driving an unlicensed or unregistered vehicle, or driving while their licence is suspended or expired.

According to the World Health Organisation, Australia had only seven deaths on the road per 100 000 people in 2009.

Canada had slightly more at about nine deaths per 100 000 people.

South Africa recorded 33 deaths per 100 000 people in the same year.

SILENCING MOTORMOUTH DRIVERS

Meanwhile, traffic officials have confiscated 1600 cellphones since the City of Cape Town started clamping down on drivers caught texting and chatting behind the wheel.

A by-law regulating this was introduced in July 2012 year as a measure to discourage motorists from using their phones while driving.

The regulation does not only allow traffic officials to confiscate phones but also to slap motorists with a R500 fine.

The by-law was welcomed by the public, but the regulation failed to take off in the way the city had hoped - many motorists were still taking chances.

Therefore, in July this year, the city introduced a further R1100 recovery fee for motorists to reclaim their confiscated phones.

Smith said that of the 1600 phones had been impounded since the by-law was introduced, about 170 had not yet been collected.

If phones are not collected within three months they are auctioned off to the public, with the first auction set to take place in November 2013 - Cape Argus

10cm is all it took to create chaos

N1 ACCIDENT: Questions raised over the city’s ability to handle traffic disasters after man nearly crushed by truck that lost its load on highway

THE TRUCK driver who lost his load on the N1 on Tuesday, causing traffic mayhem across Cape Town, was on the wrong road.

Bound for Saldanha Bay, he should have been on the R27, not the N1.

And his 4.7m load, a 12 ton barge, was 10cm higher than the height limit on the Lower Church Street bridge, which is clearly marked 4.6m.

It was 10cm that made all the difference, not only to Cape Town’s traffic, but also to the driver of the bakkie behind the truck. As the truck drove under the bridge, the barge was swept off the flatbed onto the cab of the bakkie. The driver is in a serious condition in ICU at Groote Schuur Hospital.

Now Capetonians are asking if the city is prepared for emergencies and disasters.

And JP Smith, mayoral commitee member for safety and security, wants an urgent meeting with the city’s transport directorate, safety and security, and Transport MEC Robin Carlisle.

He also wants to know why police insisted on closing all the outward bound lanes of the N1 after the accident, exacerbating the traffic chaos. THE MASSIVE traffic gridlock around the city this week caused by the accident on the N1 has left many wondering if the City of Cape Town is prepared for emergencies and disasters.

Mayoral committee member for transport Brett Herron said the city had a disaster risk management plan to deal with incidents such as yesterday’s accident, and an updated version had been approved by the mayoral committee this week. It includes a disaster risk assessment table that identifies possible hazards and the areas that would be worst hit.

These hazards range from flash floods and tsunamis to earthquakes, pest infestations and an outbreak of an infectious disease. It also looks at nonnatural disasters such as aircraft, rail and shipping incidents.

There is also a plan for a nuclear disaster at Koeberg, although this is listed as “unlikely”.

Each directorate is responsible for its relevant response to an incident.

For a major traffic accident, the chief of traffic services is responsible for co-ordinating a response with the police and other emergency services. This would involve helping police to control and disperse crowds on the roadways near the emergency area.

The plan acknowledges that serious road accidents are “very likely” (expected to happen at least once a month). It also notes that the city’s entire road network – “especially highways and intersections” – are vulnerable.

Herron said the accident on the N1 highlighted an urgent need for a freight management strategy. Many collisions in the city involved freight vehicles.

“We can’t ban freight vehicles from the roads because then we may as well close the city down from an economic perspective. But we need a clear strategy in partnership with Transnet to ensure frequent and reliable freight rail services.”

A plan is being formulated and will probably be in place by next July.

“We need to look at how freight moves, and when it moves, to reduce impact on our road structure and other users. Do we restrict certain trucks to certain roads – and how do we do that?” said Herron.

Roads such as the R27 used by heavy-duty vehicles were showing signs of wear.

Herron said that while Tuesday’s snarl-up had affected road-users, commuters using trains and MyCiTi buses were largely unaffected.

Transport consultant Rory Williams underscored the need for a rapid response to such an emergency, as well as communication between all the relevant authorities. Communication should also extend to commuters via radio and other means so they could make alternative plans before getting stuck in traffic.

Other cities have a middle lane where traffic can be reversed in the event of an emergency.

Commuters vented their frustration on social media and “#gridlock” trended on Twitter.

“Why Cape Town needs more roads: #Gridlock in the city after an accident shut down ONE major route,” read one Tweet, while another annoyed commuter Tweeted: “Can only hope there are consequences for the injury and gridlock caused by negligence in Cape Town today”.

● Herron said the city was moving closer to its vision of an integrated transport system with “one ticket, one timetable”.

Talks with the national and provincial government about allowing the City of Cape Town to take over all contracting and regulatory responsibilities for public transport are at an advanced stage.

Since the new Transport for Cape Town structure was formed a year ago, the city has applied to national government to be the contracting authority for land public transport.

It has also prepared a business plan to take over all the licensing functions of public transport, currently the responsibility of the provincial government.

“The ultimate goal is to integrate all these nodes into one network.”

There are talks with Metrorail and Golden Arrow to introduce the smart card, used on MyCiTi routes, into these services.

The Passenger Rail Agency of SA has agreed to put the multibillionrand Blue Downs rail project on its 2015 budget. This will link the southeast of the metro with the northern suburbs via a direct rail service.

Herron said that since many commuters came into the city from beyond the metro’s borders, there were plans to extend the city’s transport – be it with a MyCiTi bus or another service – to areas such as Stellenbosch and Somerset West. IN THE wake of the gridlock on Tuesday, that added hours to the home-bound commute for many thousands of central city workers, the one question motorists have been asking with some alarm is this: if the city was shut down for several hours by a single accident, involving a large truck and a bakkie, how would we possibly manage in a mega-emergency?

As things stand, the only possible answer is: with difficulty.

It’s doubtful that even the best emergency plan in the world could ease movement on our car-clogged roads… if motorists assume that, in an emergency, they can expect to get clear of the danger zone in their own cars.

Would we agree, for instance, to abandon our cars on the pavements and board buses laid on to ferry us away from danger, or agree to remain at work, in our offices, to keep roadways clear for emergency vehicles only?

This is mere conjecture. The fact is, we don’t have to imagine the likely traffic mangle that might ensue in the event of a really serious or city-wide emergency – this week’s gridlock is telling evidence enough of what is, fundamentally, an unsustainable transport modus in the 21st century.

SIMPLY speaking, too many of us – most, single drivers – are using the roads, and it’s as clear as daylight that that will have to change. It is costly, to individuals as much as the economy, wasteful of resources, and, not least, in a society with much to be frustrated about, it only ups the aggression and impatience we have enough of already.

On the transport front, there is a palpable sense that Cape Town is applying more progressive thinking, planning and investing today than at any other time in decades. The MyCiTi bus initiative, the centralising of transport management and the increasing emphasis on better, safer public transport are reflections of this.

But it may be time to consider new measures that will, to be bald, punish the excessive use of cars.

The unavoidable alternative will be to endure more traffic fiascos like Tuesday’s, or worse ones.