Big changes for vehicle impound laws in one of South Africa’s biggest cities

The City of Cape Town is seeking public input on a planned amendment to a traffic by-law centred around the provisions for impounding vehicles and the related penalties.

Cape Town’s city management noted that the by-law has not been updated in 15 years, having first been promulgated back in 2011.

A process to amend the by-law was launched in 2019 with the intention of making provisions for the impoundment of vehicles in certain situations, with a specific focus on all public transport vehicles.

These amendments were gazetted in 2022.

In an official statement, the city explained that the move to amend the by-law is an attempt to empower law enforcement to bring about meaningful change in driver behaviour within the metro.

This is in response to the pervasive disregard for the rules of the road displayed by certain drivers, with less severe punishments like fines proving to be ineffective.

“The by-law is designed to improve road safety and affect behaviour change in road users. Unfortunately, we continue to see widespread disregard for applicable national legislation and the by-law, and that is why we went back to the drawing board,” said the Chairperson of the City’s Safety and Security Portfolio Committee, Councillor Mzwakhe Nqavashe.

“The amendments that have been tabled are once more centred on impoundments, with a view to providing greater clarity to road users and the staff tasked with enforcing the legislation.”

The draft amendment PDF can be accessed via the link found on Cape Town’s press release website.

It states that the amendment will adopt a zero-tolerance approach to reckless driving behaviour, regulating both private and public transport road users.

The public participation process opens today, Friday 15 September 2025, and will run for the next 30 days.

“The persistent complaints about driver behaviour has to be addressed. Our enforcement staff use everything at their disposal to tackle the issue, but nothing changes, so we need to ramp up our efforts, to protect lives and the interests of law-abiding citizens,” said Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security, Alderman JP Smith.

“I encourage the public to engage with the draft amendments, and to make their voices heard so that we can work towards a safer city for all.”

Fines aren’t enough

JP Smith noted that Cape Town issues thousands of traffic fines every month but that this does little to deter the worst offenders on the road.

“In March, April, May, June, and July, we issued between 181,000 and 344,000 fines per month. In August, 206,000 fines were issued. Over the past six months, that comes to 1,386,247 fines, valued at about R960 million,” he said.

“Cape Town has a higher fine payment rate than the rest of the country, but fines alone don’t seem to be changing driver behaviour.”

The Mother City has added 200 additional traffic officers in the last four years with 810 recruits deployed in the latest intake.

However, JP Smith cautioned that recruiting more officers will not fix the problem on its own, as there is a concerning lack of repercussions for repeat offenders.

“Your problem is that the criminal justice system is not effectively holding people to account. Fines are issued, but serving warrants on offenders is difficult. Our warrant section does good work every day, tracing people with outstanding warrants who have ignored fines and failed to appear in court.”

Minibus taxi operators were singled out as one of the worst offenders.

“Some of these drivers have up to 1,880 warrants. When they are eventually caught, the taxi owner simply replaces them with another driver who behaves the same way,” he said.

The amended by-law will update the list of offences listed in Section 62, which includes actions like:

• Being overloaded
• Obstructing traffic
• Driving into oncoming traffic
• Overtaking on a solid white line
• Ignoring traffic channelling lines
• Driving while under the influence
• Failing to stop when signaled to do so
• Driving on the shoulder of a public road
• Cutting into a lane immediately after passing a vehicle
• Ignoring traffic signals, stop signs, and pedestrian crossings
• Accumulating a certain number of demerits under the Aarto Act

Traffic authorities will be empowered to impound vehicles without notice for any of these transgressions.

Nqavashe explained that the car itself is the object used to commit the offence, and that by taking it away, the city is saving lives by ensuring safer travel for others.