Speeding fine issued here, while car was parked in the Western Cape
The ticket holder said that he was not in eMalahleni at the time the ticket was issued.
In early January Mathew Kriel, a Capetonian received a suspicious fine in the mail.
Upon inspecting the fine, Mathew noticed that the vehicle in the picture had the same registration number, but no resemblance to his vehicle and that the speeding ticket has been issued in eMalahleni.
“I received the fine in the post as I would receive all other fines, comparing it to the ones I have received in the past, however, those were legitimate and in the Western Cape,” said Mathew.
Mathew also said that the car he drives is a white Renault and the car using his number plates in the picture on the fine, was a grey Land Rover Defender.
Besides the obvious visual difference in the make of cars, he had other proof from his tracking company, Netstar who emailed him the tracking trip report that proved at the exact time of the incident, his vehicle was parked safely in the Cape Town Central Business District.
“The problem began when I contacted the Cape Town Traffic Department and they said that there is nothing that they can do for me, as the infringement took place outside of their jurisdiction”, said Mathew.
Mathew said that he had to jump through many hoops to get his registration changed to prevent future fines from being issued in his name.
The fine he received was R500.
“I only had a few days to pay the fine before I get a summons. Problem there is that if I got the summons, I would not be able to represent my case before the magistrate as the fine was in another province,” said Mathew.
Mathew eventually had to bite the bullet and pay the fine and also changed his registration within 24 hours.
After trying to contact the Emalahleni Traffic Department, an exhaustive amount of times on numerous different contact numbers, including the contact number on the fine and Google search, Mathew eventually gave up as the numbers were either busy or did not exist.
Mathew said that he also tried to contact the Witbank Police Station and the nearest traffic department and in both situations it was unfruitful as there were no answers or the numbers did not exist.
WITBANK NEWS reached out to the Municipal Spokesperson, Mr Lebo Mofokeng, but he could not give any comment on the matter.
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