Public Comment on the Draft Road Safety Strategy for the City of Cape Town (Draft 4, April 2026)

I write as a resident of Cape Town to provide comment on the above-referenced Draft Road Safety Strategy. I commend the City for undertaking a comprehensive revision of the 2013 strategy and for grounding the updated document in global best practice, including the Safe System Approach. The depth of analysis in Chapter 4 is particularly noteworthy.

Whilst I support the overarching objectives of the Strategy, I wish to record the following specific concerns regarding certain proposed enforcement and infrastructure interventions.

1. Traffic Calming and Road Narrowing on Secondary Roads

I do not support the general application of road narrowing measures or speed bumps on secondary roads across the city. Whilst I acknowledge the value of traffic calming in appropriate contexts, and specifically support their deployment in the immediate vicinity of schools and other high-pedestrian environments, their indiscriminate use on secondary road networks raises serious concerns.

In particular, speed bumps and road narrowing can materially impede emergency vehicles, including ambulances, fire trucks, and law enforcement units responding to time-critical incidents. The Strategy itself acknowledges in Section 4.7 that improving emergency response times is a key priority and that the link between incident detection and emergency dispatch is not yet fully integrated. Installing physical infrastructure that slows emergency response would directly undermine this goal and could cost lives.

I urge the City to limit traffic calming measures to clearly defined high-risk locations, primarily near schools, pedestrian crossings, and identified blackspot zones, and to undertake emergency vehicle impact assessments before any such infrastructure is installed on secondary roads.

2. Roadblocks and Static Enforcement Operations

I do not support the widespread use of static roadblocks as a primary enforcement tool, except in clearly defined special circumstances such as major events, targeted operations in response to specific intelligence, or high-risk holiday periods.

The fundamental limitation of roadblocks is well understood: determined offenders, including drunk drivers, unlicensed drivers, and criminals, are often able to identify and avoid static checkpoints, rendering them largely ineffective against the very road users they are intended to apprehend. They also consume significant enforcement resources for limited safety return.

Instead, I strongly advocate for a shift toward dynamic, mobile enforcement. Patrol vehicles actively moving through the road network and pulling over erratic, aggressive, or otherwise suspicious drivers are significantly more effective at deterring and intercepting dangerous road user behaviour. This approach is more unpredictable to offenders, more responsive to real-time conditions, and better aligned with the Strategy’s stated goal of proactive, evidence-led enforcement.

3. The Critical Gap: Moving Traffic Violation Enforcement

I wish to highlight what I regard as the most significant gap in current road safety enforcement in Cape Town: the near-total absence of moving traffic violation enforcement.

At present, enforcement activity is heavily weighted toward static operations, speed cameras, roadblocks, and vehicle checkpoints, while moving violations such as running red lights, reckless overtaking, unsafe lane changes, failure to yield, and general aggressive driving go almost entirely unchallenged on city roads. This is widely observed by residents and represents a major credibility gap in the enforcement system.

The Strategy correctly notes in Section 4.6 that “traffic enforcement is the most direct behavioural lever within the City’s road safety ecosystem” and acknowledges the importance of performance-based enforcement. However, if moving violations are not actively policed, enforcement loses its deterrent value. Drivers quickly learn that lawless behaviour behind the wheel carries no consequence unless they happen to pass a fixed camera.

I urge the City to prioritise the resourcing and deployment of traffic officers specifically tasked with intercepting moving violations, and to incorporate moving violation offence rates as a core Key Performance Indicator within the Strategy’s monitoring framework, as contemplated in Section 7.4.

Conclusion

The Draft Strategy represents an important and ambitious commitment to reducing road trauma in Cape Town, and I support its overarching vision and Safe System philosophy. My comments above are intended to strengthen its implementation by ensuring that enforcement interventions are both effective and proportionate, and that physical infrastructure does not inadvertently compromise emergency response capacity.

I trust these comments will be given due consideration in the finalisation of the Strategy.