Page 115 - Bulletin 9 2005

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In suitably bureaucratic wording the regulations read:

No person shall drive a mechanically propelled vehicle on a public street within the
Municipality so as to be a danger to the public, or at a speed exceeding 20 miles per hour;
provided that the Council may by special resolution, duly approved of by the
Administrator, prescribe that at any dangerous corner, cross street or precipitous place, or
within limits specially defined in each case, the speed limit shall be less than 20 miles per
hour, as it may deem necessary: provided, however, that in no case shall such resolution
take effect until the Council has caused to be affixed, at the dangerous corner, cross street,
precipitous place, or at each end of the limits aforesaid in a conspicuous place on or near
the public street, notices or signs warning the public of the maximum rate of speed
aforesaid thereat or therein, and unless the Council shall thereafter cause the same to be
kept affixed and legible. Any person contravening the provisions of this regulation shall on
conviction, be liable to a penalty not exceeding twenty pounds.

However, the motor vehicles and appliances of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade were

exempted from these restrictions. (Fig. 3.8)

No doubt anticipating these regulations, the Kalk Bay – Muizenberg Municipality, after a

meeting with the Administrator, had on 13 November 1912 already promulgated its own
speed restrictions:

Minute of the Mayor1913.

That the speed of motor vehicles of all kinds within the limits of this Municipality be 20
miles per hour except on the Main Road between Camp Road Muizenberg and Trappies
Hill, Kalk Bay, and on all side roads from the Main Road to Muizenberg Beach where the
speed of such vehicles shall be limited to 10 miles per hour.

Motoring as recreation

Concurrently, there were demands for better roads, and for the construction of entirely new
roads to “open up the Peninsula”. Most notable among the proposals was the grand idea