Nowhere to hide for fine dodgers
Special cameras to help recover millions
IN AN effort to recover the millions owed in outstanding traffic fines, Buffalo City Metro (BCM) yesterday launched a new camera system that reads number plates and links cars to their drivers’ unpaid fines.
The automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) system, which will be operated from two mobile offices staffed by traffic officers, will see road offenders with warrants of arrest get detained on the spot and those with outstanding fines issued with a summons.
There will be an option to make payment at paypoints available at the mobile offices.
BCM mayor Alfred Mtsi warned that drivers with outstanding fines would be dealt with.
“Those who have been cheating the system, and have been using our roads aware of the fact that they have outstanding traffic fines and warrants, will be effectively dealt with,” warned Mtsi.
“With this system we want to send a strong signal to road users that breaking the laws on our roads and dodging payment of fines will not be tolerated.”
ANPR uses high-speed cameras capable of character recognition. When the system matches the number plate to the database of offenders, operators on site will be notified immediately – even before the vehicle passes the mobile office.
Service provider Lindikhaya Sipoyo from Total Client Services (TCS), a Pretoria-based company which specialises in solutions for traffic contravention, said a database of the more than 300 000 road offenders in the city had already been loaded onto the system.
Mtsi said the primary reason for unpaid fines was due to a lack of capacity to collect them in “this labour intensive process”.
“As a result of this non-collection of unpaid traffic fines, the municipality is owed money that could be channelled towards procuring the much needed equipment and other valuable resources to improve traffic policing,” he said.
The new system will also link the traffic departments in East London and King William’s Town, meaning it will no longer matter where the offence happened as drivers can be prosecuted regardless of where they were caught.
In addition to the ANPR system, the metro said it also had plans to install permanent speed cameras at identified traffic light intersections.
The cameras will be able to calculate vehicle speeds from impulses received from three road sensors or lasers mounted inside the camera.
Since earlier this month TCS employees travelling in vehicles marked “ViewFines.net: Pay Your Fine” have been seen around East London carrying out speed checks.
BCM traffic department head Quinton Chetty said the courts would eventually decide where to place the cameras, adding that the process of installing them would take about two months. —