Racing on Plattekloof Road and Monte Vista Boulevard and surrounding roads in the area seem to subside when traffic officials are out on patrol.
This is the comment made by Ward 1 DA councillor, Cheryl Visser at the Subcouncil 3 meeting held in Milnerton on Thursday 18 May. Ward 1 includes Kleinbosch, Monte Vista, Kaapzicht, Plattekloof, Panorama and Welgelegen.
Councillors were discussing the report for traffic services for the month of April when Visser raised her concern regarding speedsters in her area.
According to the Traffic Enforcement Monthly Sub-council Report a total of 11 602 speeding moving violations were reported during the month of April in Subcouncil 3. The majority of these were recorded in Ward 113 (7 969), followed by Ward 4 (2 754), and Ward 1 (837).
Traffic patrols requested
Visser said the street racing usually happens late at night.
“But when there are traffic officers around it subsides,” she said.
She said she knows that the resources for the traffic services are low, and wanted to know how the City of Cape Town’s traffic services work with the provincial traffic services, and if they communicate with one another.
Principal Inspector Mervyn Knipe responded saying that their work with provincial traffic is limited.
The provincial traffic service focuses mainly on the N1 and N7 highways and there is no communication between the two bodies. “We work separately,” he said.
Concerned about racers
Paul Kruger, member of the neighbourhood watch Plattekloof, Welgelegen, Panorama and Kleinbosch (PWP), said car racing has been an ongoing problem on Plattekloof Road over the last few months and that the neighbourhood watch, as well as the local ratepayers association have been getting complaints non-stop.
“It came to a stage that we had to start doing some investigation and we established that the ongoing offenders are staying in our areas; from video footage from residents.
“We even established that they remove number plates or use one number plate on several vehicles.
“We are not sure if the number plates are registered.
“Lately we also got a group of vehicles that do regular drifting at the intersections on Gert van Rooyen Avenue and Rothschild Boulevard, and the vehicles with the loud popping and banging exhaust systems that we have identified and reported to the traffic department,” said Kruger.
Kruger said there are solutions. These include a permanent speed camera on Plattekloof Road.
A temporary solution is for the traffic department to do regular speed checks.
