News / National
Zimbabwe police to impound unlicensed motor vehicles
14 Jul 2012 at 07:10hrs | Views
Motorists not displaying new licence discs will have their vehicles impounded by the police with immediate effect.
The police are working with the Zimbabwe Road Administration Authority on a mechanism that provides for the impounding of the vehicles.
This comes after 317 motorists were arrested in less than six hours at three roadblocks mounted on some major roads this week for failure to licence their vehicles.
The spot check roadblocks were being used to determine the compliance of motorists with the new system.
The impounding of vehicles comes amid reports that only 364 000 vehicles had been licenced by the end of the deadline on 30 June out of an estimated 800 000 cars in the country.
Acting national traffic police spokesperson Assistant Inspector Luckmore Chakanza yesterday said the detecting vehicle was now on the road.
"We are now on the road and started operating yesterday (Thursday). And what we are saying now is that all vehicles without the new licence discs would be impounded and taken to the Vehicle Inspection Department," he said.
Asst Insp Chakanza said the vehicles would only be released when the owners have obtained the new licence disc.
Other traffic offenders would also be arrested.
Police would also be checking vehicle roadworthiness.
Asst Insp Chakanza urged motorists to comply with all traffic regulations.
"We will continue to be on the road to ensure there is sanity countrywide," he said.
Zinara head of administration and human resources Mr Precious Murove said of the 317 motorists arrested without the new licence discs, 149 were detected on 6 July , and 168 others were fined yesterday.
"We have already engaged and we are working on modalities with the Criminal Investigation Department and Vehicle Inspection Department so that we are empowered as law enforcement agents to impound defaulters' vehicles until they comply and clear their arrears," he said.
Mr Murove said they had discovered that most motorists were not complying with the new system because they had arrears dating back to 2009.
Others had no proper documentation for their vehicles such as registration books.
Mr Murove said more detecting vehicles would be bought and deployed out of Harare.
The recently acquired Mercedes BenzVito is a super vehicle that contains electronic gadgets including a laptop directly connected to Zinara's national vehicle database and has four high definition digital video recorders that capture everything happening within the vicinity of a mounted roadblock.
The car has an automatic number plate recognition mounted with an all weather infrared camera placed 15 metres from it to scan all the vehicles passing through.
Zinara recently introduced the new licence disc with high security features to curb counterfeiting.
The police are working with the Zimbabwe Road Administration Authority on a mechanism that provides for the impounding of the vehicles.
This comes after 317 motorists were arrested in less than six hours at three roadblocks mounted on some major roads this week for failure to licence their vehicles.
The spot check roadblocks were being used to determine the compliance of motorists with the new system.
The impounding of vehicles comes amid reports that only 364 000 vehicles had been licenced by the end of the deadline on 30 June out of an estimated 800 000 cars in the country.
Acting national traffic police spokesperson Assistant Inspector Luckmore Chakanza yesterday said the detecting vehicle was now on the road.
"We are now on the road and started operating yesterday (Thursday). And what we are saying now is that all vehicles without the new licence discs would be impounded and taken to the Vehicle Inspection Department," he said.
Asst Insp Chakanza said the vehicles would only be released when the owners have obtained the new licence disc.
Other traffic offenders would also be arrested.
Police would also be checking vehicle roadworthiness.
"We will continue to be on the road to ensure there is sanity countrywide," he said.
Zinara head of administration and human resources Mr Precious Murove said of the 317 motorists arrested without the new licence discs, 149 were detected on 6 July , and 168 others were fined yesterday.
"We have already engaged and we are working on modalities with the Criminal Investigation Department and Vehicle Inspection Department so that we are empowered as law enforcement agents to impound defaulters' vehicles until they comply and clear their arrears," he said.
Mr Murove said they had discovered that most motorists were not complying with the new system because they had arrears dating back to 2009.
Others had no proper documentation for their vehicles such as registration books.
Mr Murove said more detecting vehicles would be bought and deployed out of Harare.
The recently acquired Mercedes BenzVito is a super vehicle that contains electronic gadgets including a laptop directly connected to Zinara's national vehicle database and has four high definition digital video recorders that capture everything happening within the vicinity of a mounted roadblock.
The car has an automatic number plate recognition mounted with an all weather infrared camera placed 15 metres from it to scan all the vehicles passing through.
Zinara recently introduced the new licence disc with high security features to curb counterfeiting.
Source - TC
