The City of Cape Town‘s Public Emergency Communication Centre (PECC) recorded 3 384 calls for assistance over the long weekend, including 148 road accidents, while City services made 373 arrests and issued 64 201 fines during weekly patrols, the municipality said on Tuesday.
The centre logged 174 cases of physical assault and 93 domestic violence incidents over the long weekend. Of the 148 road accidents, 33 involved pedestrians, while the total included nearly 150 motor vehicle accidents.
Emergency calls and road incidents
JP Smith, Mayco member for safety and security, said the call rates were concerning but consistent with the pattern seen over many other long weekends.
“The call rates, while of concern, do not come as a surprise. It bears the hallmarks of many other long weekends, where we see an increase in interpersonal incidents — many linked to alcohol abuse. And of course, we had some rain this weekend and unfortunately there is a direct correlation between weather and road safety incidents. Too many drivers simply do not appreciate the need to change their driving behaviour to match the environmental or road conditions.
“The City has an exceptional emergency call centre and we will continue to invest into the resourcing and modernisation of the service to ensure we able to assist our residents, I do want to reiterate a previous call that residents familiarise themselves with the safety and security addition to the City app that allows the logging of requests directly to our services.
“This add-on allows residents to log by-law offences that lessens the burden on our emergency call centre ensuring they can focus on life and death matters,” said Smith.
Enforcement figures for the week
Over the past week, Metro Police officers made 103 arrests and issued 5 845 notices. They recovered seven stolen and/or hijacked vehicles, a firearm and various quantities of drugs. Law Enforcement officers made 221 arrests and issued 10 978 notices. Traffic Officers recorded 49 arrests: 43 for driving under the influence of alcohol, two for reckless or negligent driving, and four for other offences. They also issued 47 381 fines, executed 1 948 warrants of arrest and impounded 188 public transport vehicles.
How to report an emergency
The public is reminded to report emergencies or any suspicious and, or criminal activities to the PECC on 021 480 7700.
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