At least 144 of an estimated 5 000 motorists have been arrested in a police blitz targeting drivers with outstanding traffic offences.
National traffic police spokesperson, Inspector Tigere Chigome, said more than 3 000 defaulters had paid their overdue ticket fines and were set free.
The traffic offences dated back to 2008. “Out of the number of people who are on the wanted list 144 were arrested and taken to court. At least 3254 paid those overdue tickets,” said Chigome.
He said the blitz could have netted more defaulters, but was being hindered by false contact details allegedly supplied by some of the offenders.
“Others could have given us false addresses and names as police officers would have been made to think that these were gentlemen and women, but unfortunately they deceived our police officers. However, the long arm of the law will always catch up with them,” Chigome warned.
“We are still encouraging those with outstanding tickets to go and settle them at the respective stations where those tickets were issued.
“As the operation is still ongoing, we are saying let’s try to save our faces by paying those tickets because when one is caught at our traffic check points, our officers will not hesitate to put them in the cells since they have warrants of arrest for them to be taken to court.”
At the launch, Chigome said they were targeting more than 5 000 motorists who were ticketed for various traffic offences and failed to pay.
