[imagesource: Wayne Reiche / RedBullcontentpool]

The Cape Town Taxi Association (CATA) is not at all chuffed with the City of Cape Town’s newly amended traffic by-law.

Safety and security head JP Smith revealed the provincial government’s clampdown on taxis and speed racers with legislation that will give traffic services, metro police, and law enforcement more power.

Traffic officials will be granted the ability to implement harsher action against those who fly in the face of road rules and show disregard for the safety of other road users, per CapeTalk.

Besides traffic fines, traffic officials will also be able to instantly impound lawless vehicles in an effort to bring “law and order and improved safety to the metro’s 12 000km road network within the municipality”.

BusinessTech notes that the impounding of vehicles is currently only allowed in very specific situations like when a car has been abandoned, is without a licence, or is obviously involved in criminal activity.

The new by-laws are mostly directed towards “those operating in the taxi industry, those partaking in illegal street racing activities, and those who fail to correctly display number plates”.

While Smith says that those who have been “calling for improved enforcement can rest assured that relief is imminent,” Cape Town-based taxi giants Codeta and Cata are unsettled by the news, saying the move will just further disadvantage them, IOL reports.

Here’s CATA secretary Mongi Titi :

“It seems the City and province are not singing the same tune, because the province to us said they were looking for ways to regulate and register the existing taxis and legalise them, but then on the other hand the City is intensifying the by-law.”

The hope is that traffic authorities don’t abuse their newfound power.

In addition, as city critic group Stop CoCT founder Sandra Dickson points out, it is often “the absence of visible traffic policing rather than stricter by-laws” that leads to such lawlessness on our streets.

[sources:capetalk&iol&businesstech]