Victoria Road has become a hot spot for reckless driving, says Hout Bay ward councillor Roberto Quintas.
Hout Bay residents have welcomed ward councillor Roberto Quintas’s formal request to the City for permanent speed cameras along Victoria Road, Victoria Avenue and Main Road.
The roads have long been labelled hot spots for speeding and reckless driving.
In a traffic blitz along Victoria Road last month, traffic officers issued close to R30 000 in fines for various offences. The highest speed clocked in at just over 130km/h in the 60km/h zone. Sports cars were also pulled over for failing to display their licence plates (“Sports cars nabbed in traffic blitz,” Sentinel News, May 27, 2022).
Resident Rowen Kannemeyer said people were “playing with their lives” when driving recklessly on Hout Bay’s roads.
“We see people every day who are not so lucky to make it out alive, and then we see people risking it all on these roads and showing no respect to other users.”
He understood that it was impossible to have a 24-hour watch on Hout Bay’s roads but said: “There must be other ways to create safer roads for all to use.
“With a camera in an area known to be a hot spot, there should be hefty fines if caught.”
Single mother of three, Sharon Williams, who travels on Victoria Road to work each morning after dropping her children at school, said the road was “an accident waiting to happen”.
Swerving, dangerous overtaking, speeding and sudden stops were just some of the things she had seen on her way to work in Sea Point, she said.
“There is a reason this road is known as a hot spot: it’s as if people lose all their sense of driving when driving down Victoria Road.”
Much harsher fines and sentences should be imposed on those breaking the rules of the road, she said.
“It will make no sense to slap somebody who can afford to drive these expensive cars with a R500 every Sunday. That for them is nothing, and they already probably even budget for that R500 on a Sunday and then go and drive the way they like.”
Mr Quintas, who is also the mayoral committee member for urban mobility, said Main Road, from Constantia Nek, and Victoria Avenue drew regular complaints about driver behaviour.
A committee of traffic and roads officials would have to consider his request for the speed cameras, he said. The decision they took would, in part, be based on formal complaints and accident rates.
“A list is decided of priority areas in the city road network, and these are attended to as and when budget and resources are available.”
Victoria Road had become one of the city’s many hot spots for reckless driving, and regular enforcement there, including trapping and roadblocks, would not stop, he said.
“If you speed, if you drive drunk or recklessly, if you drive without plates, you will be apprehended and the full extent of punitive measures available will be exercised against you.”