Traffic spy cars hit the road

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A fleet of hi-tech “spy cars” hit Cape Town’s roads on Wednesday to hunt for law-breakers and the 1.6 million drivers who owe R600 million in unpaid traffic fines. The technology, which has never been used in the city, features six unmarked traffic vehicles fitted with cameras which record number plates, known as Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras (ANPR). On Wednesday morning, these mobile units began secretly scanning the city’s roads for drivers and vehicles wanted for a range of offences. They augment the substantial number of “ghost squad” vehicles patrolling the city, monitoring traffic. The cameras are roof-mounted. Such is the cameras’ extraordinary technical ability, that a “spy car” can drive at highway speed past a lot of parked cars and pick up the cars’ registration numbers. This information is instantly fed from the cameras to on-board computers, installed on the vehicles’ back seats, and here the plates’ information is matched against various databases from eNatis (National Traffic Information System) and the City of Cape Town’s vehicle registration department.

“The computers are loaded with details of vehicle owners who have outstanding warrants of arrest, of stolen vehicles and unlicensed vehicles,” said the traffic department’s Merle Lourens.

This information is then presented to traffic officers in the vehicles’ passenger seats on dashboard-mounted computer screens.

Every time a numberplate is picked up they hear a “ping”. If a wanted offender is identified an alarm hoots.

The systems can even tell officers when a licence plate is being fraudulently used on a different vehicle.

“These are highly intelligent systems which give traffic officers a substantial new weapon in fighting road crimes,” said the city’s safety head, JP Smith.

On Wednesday morning, the cars were dispatched in the northern suburbs around Stellenbosch Arterial route and Symphony Way between Blackheath and the N2.

The traffic department has requested that the make and descriptions of the “spy” vehicles not be publicised.

“We have used these camera systems at fixed sites, such as roadblocks, but it’s easy to avoid fixed places. People very quickly hear about roadblocks and taxi drivers will call each other, for example,” said Smith. “And there are also many people who don’t use any major arterial routes regularly. You can evade detection for a long time.

“These mobile units will help us to be able to police in a far wider range of communities and areas.”

Lourens confirmed that about 1.6 million drivers owed a total of R600m in unpaid fines and some of these could date back for more than a decade.

The city today introduced an “easy payment options” system for fines that are not past the summons date. These include:

l Over-the-counter (cash, cheques and postal orders) at City of Cape Town Cash and Housing offices, municipal courts and city traffic centres.

l Cash payment at all Absa branches and post offices.

l ATM payments – this is restricted to Absa clients only.

l Internet payments with the use of credit cards

l Cellphone payments – via a mobile application site called Pocit which can be downloaded.

l Traffic roadblock payments – cash, cheque, postal orders and credit and debit cards.

Motorist Anthony Mark Jacobs, 41, said on Wednesday: “It’s much better than going to court, especially for me because I work on the roads.”

Scores of drivers travelling along Stellenbosch Arterial were handed pamphlets by traffic officers on Wednesday detailing where and how fines can be paid.

Previously motorists could only pay for fines at their local traffic department or municipal court.

Drivers who want to pay overdue fines or have them reduced can visit various municipal courts.

The city said the top taxi offender has 80 warrants of arrest and owed more than R70 000 while the top private vehicle offender owed over R15 000 for his 28 outstanding fines.

Lourens said revenue from traffic fines were not filtered back to the traffic services alone.

“It is deposited into the city’s fund where monies are used for various departments.”

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