180 Transport vehicles found unroadworthy in 4 days!
Only four days into Cape Town’s holiday season road safety initiative and 180 public transport vehicles have been found and declared unroadworthy!
The City also said, that on a positive note – most of the vehicles stopped and checked were actually roadworthy.
I hardly think that’s notably positive, every vehicle should be roadworthy!
Safety checks conducted on 628 transport vehicles, most of which were minibus taxis and buses, found that only 71% (448) of these were actually legally allowed to drive on the road.
As part of the road safety initiative, ‘Operation Exodus’, checks were conducted at various interchanges and have been designed to check and ensure both driver and vehicle fitness. With the main focus being on transport vehicles.
If any vehicles were found to have problems, then the officers informed the driver or owner of the vehicle. Further adding,
“They could then go and have those issues seen to and return for a retest. There were about 50 cases where the vehicles were suspended from operating on a public road until such time that the defects are satisfactorily addressed.”
Apart from the unroadworthy transport vehicles, 8 011 other transgressions were found. Among these include:
- Speeding
- Unlicensed drivers/vehicles
- Failure to wear safety belts
“The next week is going to be crucial as we expect a sharp rise in the number of people traveling on or around the public holiday and then in the days leading up to Christmas,” Smith said.
He appealed to public transport operators to submit to the safety checks “for their own peace of mind, but also that of their passengers”.
“However, I do want to remind private motorists that we’ll be keeping an eye on them too and that the same rules apply to everyone.
Get your vehicle tested to ensure it is roadworthy and refrain from drinking and driving as you could land up behind bars, or worse, cause a crash with potentially devastating results.”