Sea Point’s Beach Road residents are still struggling with the fast and noisy cars which threaten their safety and disturb their peace.
The Atlantic Sun reported their complaints as early as 2021 (“Beach Road residents revved up over noise, racing,” November 25, 2021).
Grant Richardson, who emailed City of Cape Town authorities about the problem on July 15, fears that fights might start breaking out.
“Things have now reached a point where altercations are taking place between pedestrians and those racing and creating a general disturbance on the road. I personally witnessed two altercations – one of which I managed to partially record on video. The woman in the video was pushing a pram with baby across the pedestrian crossing, the pram was very narrowly missed by one of the moron drivers,” said Mr Richardson.
“I’m thinking perhaps it may be time to have a good look at the CCTV cameras along the Beach Road area and pick up registration numbers of vehicles that appear to be heavily modified. Thereafter, start paying home inspections and impounding vehicles having had illegal modifications carried out,” he said.
Ben Surdut, an attorney who has lived in a Beach Road apartment for three years, says the noise is awful, especially on a Sunday.
“When we get visitors on the weekend they ask us how we can live here, the racing and revving here is worst here on a Sunday, it’s loud and goes on from the afternoon to the evenings,” said Mr Surdut.
“There are fancy cars and cars with big exhausts. This seems to be the new Killarney. The latest thing I’ve noticed is that some of these guys just park on the pavement and that’s a problem too,” he said.
According to Traffic Services spokesman Maxine Bezuidenhout, the traffic agency performs regular enforcement patrols in the Sea Point neighbourhood.
“It should be noted that other enforcement departments such as Metro Police and Law Enforcement can also address the issue of revving of vehicles on a public roadway,” Ms Bezuidenhout said.
Ms Bezuidenhout adds that incidents of illegal driver behaviour can be reported to the City’s Public Emergency Communication Centre by phoning 021 480 7700 from a cellphone and 107 from a landline.
