Motorists are sitting ducks

The construction of the Bus Rapid Transit system in the city centre and the traffic congestion it has been causing is not only making motorists frustrated, but also making them easy targets of smash-and-grab criminals.

The Pretoria Central police revealed in a statement that criminals used the ongoing road construction in the area as an opportunity to commit crimes such as theft out of motor vehicles.

These crimes were being committed at intersections and streets where there was bad congestion.

Central police spokesperson, Sergeant Ann Poortman, urged motorists to be cautious when driving through Pretoria.

“Never leave any valuables exposed inside your car,” Poortman said.

She also advised motorists to always make sure that they locked their doors and closed the windows of their cars.

Some people posing as pamphlet distributors and ‘ice cream’ sellers at the intersections are in fact opportunistic criminals looking for easy targets.

The criminals also stole goods off the back of trucks and bakkies and, therefore, she emphasised that it was essential that loads be secured.

Rekord has reported on many occasions on the increase of theft out of motor vehicles in the CBD in recent months.

According to the latest crime statistics of the Police Central Cluster, the Central police station was leading with theft out of motor vehicle incidents.

The statistics show that theft out of motor vehicles increased from 2 176 to 2 395 incidents during the 2012/2013 financial year.

The figures exclude unreported incidents, which suggests that the actual figures might be even worse.

According to self-confessed criminals, thousands commit crime daily, some of which are violent crimes, to feed their drug addiction.

One of the self-confessed criminals said if he wanted to smoke nyaope but had no money, he would fearlessly commit any crime to get hold of the drugs.