Traffic authorities in the North West have intensified their operation to pinch on owing motorists to immediately pay their outstanding fines.
The operation is also run in conjunction with the safer festive programmes underway in some parts of the province.
The Department of Community Safety and Transport Management warned that it would not hesitate to arrest motorists, who received traffic fines and but failed to pay them.
“People fail to obey the rules of the roads, receive traffic fines and they never pay them.
It simply means if you fail to pay a fine a warrant of arrest would be issued.
In the province we issue direct section 56, a direct summons to appear in court and if you fail to obey to that, a warrant of arrest would be issued,” warned the Director for Provincial Road Traffic Management, Paul Stone.
Stone was speaking on the N4 in Zeerust, at the Ramotshere Moiloa Local Municipality, where 27 warrants of arrest were executed in the first few minutes of the operation.
He highlighted that the department is using technology to screen both the vehicle and the driver’s licence of the driver, and if any warrant of arrest had been issued, the driver is arrested.
According to Stone, they only use swipe machines to pay on the spot, as they don’t want keep cash on the roadside in case they’re robbed.
“We use a cash free service.
But for the motorists who are unable to use our services, we take them to the nearest police station or traffic office to pay cash,” explained Stone.
The province has experienced a fair reduction on road fatalities during the 2023 festive season, which is 10% less when compared to the same period last year.
Despite this, Stone appealed to motorists to continue exercising caution on the roads.
“We would have wished for a zero-fatality rate on our roads.
But unfortunately, motorists contribute to most of these crashes because their impatient, drive whilst fatigue and overtake where it is not safe to do so.
Most of the offences we see this year are related to driver behaviour and we plead with the drivers to comply with the road rules,” pleaded Stone.
The department’s programmes targeted problematic routes in the province for operations such as the N4, N12, N14, N18 and other arterial roads linking with neighbouring provinces.
