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Some 1 473 fines were issued for speeding in Cape Town over the Easter weekend, the city's traffic services said on Tuesday.
Chief Inspectorate Merle Lourens said the highest readings recorded were 158km/h and 146km/h in a 60km/h zone on Table Bay Boulevard and Vanguard Drive respectively.
She said the fines were issued during "operation exodus" conducted as part of making the city's roads safe during the Easter weekend.
The joint venture between provincial traffic officials and the Cape Town traffic services focused on all major national roads including the N1, N2 and the N7.
Lourens said some 372 taxis and 85 buses were checked for roadworthiness, driver fitness and overloading.
Of these, 10 taxis and five buses were suspended for various defects and were not allowed to continue on their long distance journeys.
A total of 413 traffic offences by taxis were recorded and these included 90 driving violations, 114 public transport offences and 35 related to roadworthiness.
Eleven taxi drivers were issued with warrants of arrests for outstanding fines to the value of R86 350.
One driver was held for 17 outstanding warrants valued at R11 250 and another for a double warrant of R14 900.
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Ford Focus RS500 Sells Out Within 12 Hours
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Those of you wanting to buy a Ford Focus RS500 will have to pray for someone to cancel their order. Despite the fact that the car's price has not been revealed, the limited edition Focus is already sold out in the UK, according to Autocar..
Once photos of the car were released early, an automaker source tells the magazine that "people were literally walking into dealers or calling them up and placing orders for the car." Ford tried to handle the situation as best they could, but the source says that "because we had to quickly bring the car's launch forward we hadn't even briefed the dealers on its existence. It led to some quite confused phone calls between dealers and head office."
Still, Ford is going to have some explaining to do to the rest of the car's fanbase. Orders were not supposed to begin until next month. Only 500 units of the special edition are to be produced, with sales taking place in the UK and 19 other European markets.
The matte-black hatch will use a tuned version of the 2.5-liter five-cylinder engine that produces 257 kW and up to 460 Nm of torque. The car hits 100 km/h in 5.6 seconds on its way to a top speed of 265 km/h.
With such extreme interest in a car that hasn't been fully revealed, look for Ford to take full advantage by pricing their car higher than planned. The Ford Focus RS500 will be shown to the public in Leipzig, Germany, on April 9.
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Toyota to face $16.4 Million Fine
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Federal regulators in the US have levied a 16.4 million dollar fine against the Japanese automaker Toyota for failing to disclose information related to faulty gas pedals.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said that Toyota knew about the problem in US market cars as early as September of 2009 but did not issue a recall until four months later in January of this year.
"We now have proof that Toyota failed to live up to its legal obligations," said Ray LaHood, the US Transportation Secretary.
Toyota has been given notice by the NHTSA and has until April 19 to respond or the transportation body will go to court to enforce the fine.
According to NHTSA, Toyota issued repair procedures on September 29 to dealers in Canada and 31 other European countries regarding sticking accelerator pedals but no such procedures were issued in the US even though Toyota knew of existing problems in that market too.
Toyota has recalled 2.3 million cars related to sticking accelerator pedals. Another 5.4 million vehicles were also recalled due to gas pedal entrapment issues such as with the floor mats.
The fine, altough the largest in US auto industry history, won't hurt Toyota at all even if it must be paid. Last year the company's revenues were $209 billion (€155 million). But it will inevitably hurt their once impeccable brand image in terms of quality.
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GM to offer brake override systems globally by 2012
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With consumers worried about unintended acceleration, GM has announced plans to equip more vehicles with a brake-override system.
Set to be installed on all cars (worldwide) with automatic transmissions and electronic throttle controls, by the end of 2012, the override reduces power to the engine when the brake and accelerator are depressed at the same time. Currently, only the Corvette, Camaro V8, Malibu L4, Colorado V8, Cobalt, HHR, Canyon V8, CTS-V and STS-V have a brake-override system.
According to Tom Stephens, vice chairman of GM Global Product Operations, "News media analyses of government data consistently validates that GM's safety record on this issue is among the strongest in the industry. At the same time, we know safety is top of mind for consumers, so we are applying additional technology to reassure them that they can count on the brakes in their GM vehicle."
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