This is the year of traffic reform, as government implements new laws and regulations designed to improve conditions on the roads in South Africa.

The most controversial addition to SA law has been the new demerit system designed to penalise those violating traffic laws with fines and points, weighted to the severity of the offence.

Those laws will be implemented by traffic officials – provided those traffic officials aren’t made of cardboard.

Motorists in Cape Town have been noticing cardboard cut-outs of traffic officers in the city, reports BusinessTech, and they’re not the only ones:

Road users took to social media to post footage of the police cut-outs, which according to the city’s traffic services spokesperson, have been in use since 2017.

A similar tactic was used in Gauteng in 2017, when Arrive Alive posted pictures to social media of cardboard cut-outs of Tshwane Metro Police Department (TMPD) traffic cars along sections of the N1 and N4 in Gauteng and surrounds.

The TMPD said at the time that the initiative was undertaken by the Bakwena road agency – which operates sections of the N1 and N4 in Tshwane, Bela-Bela, Rustenburg, and Zeerust – to curb speeding during the Easter period.

Back to Cape Town. Here’s what motorists spotted:

The moustache and disapproving look is on point.

Great to see the City is keeping up with the latest technology.

[source:businesstech]