Gauteng’s new number plates outsmart ‘cooldrinks’ and criminals
New 'smart' number plates, designed to track vehicle movements, prevent crime, and bring transparency to traffic stops, introduced.
The Gauteng Provincial Government has launched a pilot programmw for new ‘smart’ number plates, designed to enhance crime prevention and tracking.
The plates were unveiled at the Nasrec Expo Centre in Soweto and will be tested on government-owned vehicles for six months. Although initially slated for completion over two months ago, the pilot aims to utilize technology to track vehicle movements, assisting law enforcement in preventing and investigating crimes.
This initiative was first announced by Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi two and a half years ago.
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MEC for Gauteng Roads and Transport Department Kedinone Diale Tlabela said there’s more than meets the eye with the new number plates, “Police and metro police will be using specialised gadgets to tap and scan every time they stop motorists. No more cooldrinks and bribery because immediately after they scan the number of your vehicle, it reports to the command centre that this vehicle was stopped on this road by this officer”
Diale-Tlabela said the gadgets will also assist them in monitoring the performance of their traffic officers. “This is a great idea and please go get your new number plates.”
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Lesufi said: “When my team came for the first time to present the idea of smart number plates, they brought a number plate and I told them to go back to the drawing board.
“Because the problem is that people remove these number plate and put a new one, so, this is now permanent. If you tamper or remove it, then we will know that you tampered with it.
So, it is no longer going to be changed, for instance when people want to speed they remove the plates, put a new one, and then speed afterward they go back.”
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