Weekend driving on Eastern Cape roads is a free for all.

Weekend driving on Eastern Cape roads is a free for all as provincial traffic cops refuse to work any longer due to non-payment of overtime.

This news was conveyed to a Legislature Transport Portfolio oversight meeting at the Provincial Traffic offices in Port Elizabeth yesterday (subs: Thurs, 2 Sept).

Furthermore, a legislature question regarding when overtime payments will be done, asked by myself in July to the MEC for Transport, Ghishma Barry, remains unanswered.

The outstanding overtime owed to some officers goes back as far as December 2009.

The lack of visible policing on our roads over weekends will put the lives of all motorists in extra danger. Weekends will now be a field-day for drunk drivers, speedsters and lawbreakers to flout traffic laws.

All motorists are entitled to be protected with safety while using our roads and their safety must not be at risk due to the non-attendance of traffic officers.

The MEC must be squarely to blame for accidents committed on weekends when traffic policing could have avoided such incidents.

I will be raising this issue as a matter of urgency with the Transport Portfolio Committee at its meeting on Wednesday (subs: 8 Sept) asking for urgent intervention to pay these officers so that weekend policing can resume on our provincial roads.

For more information contact Dacre Haddon on 079 694 3788