A multiple vehicle accident occurred on Victoria Rd, in Campsbay. A minibus taxi had allegedly, overtaken illegally on over a solid line, around a blind corner of the mountain contour road.
He subsequently collided head on with several other vehicles. Numerous Law Enforcement units responded along with our Traffic Services. The driver of the minibus taxi was arrested for Reckless and Negligent driving and road closures
were in place for several hours until the vehicle wreckage scene was cleared.
Numerous complaints of reckless and inconsiderate taxi driving behavior is received through our office on a daily basis. While our services are limited and cannot be on every location 24/7, attempts of negotiation with the industry that begun in 2024 still have not produced any improvement in driver behavior.
At the time, the taxi industry strongly opposed our officials having the right to impound the vehicles of offenders who drove with inconsideration to fellow road users. The argument stood that “the vehicle belonged to the operator and they shouldn’t be made to suffer the inconvenience of having their vehicle impounded, simply because the driver had transgressed the law.”
We have always maintained that the safety of motorists as well as those using public transport, must be improved and their safety ensured. While the amended Traffic by-law was blamed for the increased enforcement at the time, such impounds were in fact, always performed under the National Land Transport Act, an embarrassing realisation by the
National governments Transport minister who attempted to blame our by-law at the time.
Even as such with our hands tied, we have continued with impoundments each and every day, with our Public Transport pounds always kept at full capacity. On Friday the 23rd, officers carried out another 25 Public Transport vehicle impounds, using only parts of the legislation for which we are still permitted to impound for, such as rogue operators not having any permit to carry out public transport operations. The current National legislation is flawed and fails to address the ever increasing lawless driving behavior, simply allowing the registered operator to pay a penalty and immediately recover their impounded vehicle, whereby they instantly place the same vehicle with the same offender, back on the public road.
While 35 taxis were impounded on Friday, another 40 were immediately released to the operators following the above flawed legislative process outlined above.
We will continue working towards improving road safety for all, and accepting the unwilling intention of National goverment wanting to address their failing legislation, we will use our Constitutional powers as a municipality through the use of our by-law application, to ensure we improve road safety of all.
Credit: JP Smith
Reckless taxi driving continues https://t.co/AnzT6VemlA#ArriveAlive #TaxiCollision #RecklessDriving pic.twitter.com/wkC9NF232M
– Arrive Alive (@_ArriveAlive) February 27, 2024