Cape Town has good roads and several fast freeways that can whisk you across town in next to no time, except at peak hours (7-9am & 4-6.30pm). Take care approaching: the on-ramps frequently feed directly into the fast lane, and Capetonians have no compunction in exceeding the 100kph freeway and 120kph highway speed limits. There's often little warning of branches off to the suburbs, only the final destination of the freeway being given. Your best bet is to plan your journey, and make sure you know exactly where you're going. On the plus side, the obvious landmarks of Table Mountain and the two seaboards make orientation straightforward, particularly south of the centre, and there are some wonderful journeys, the most notable being the drives along the Atlantic seaboard to Hout Bay and Chapman's Peak Drive, a narrow winding cliff-edge route with the Atlantic breaking hundreds of metres below, and around the Cape Point Nature Reserve, returning from Cape Point along the False Bay seaboard. Note that Chapman's Peak is not expected to be open to motorized traffic till the middle of 2003, but you can get onto it on foot or by bike.

The usual precautions for defensive driving in South Africa are in order, especially since Cape Town has a few peculiarities all of its own. An unwritten rule of the road on the Peninsula is that minibus taxis have the right of way. Don't mess with them: their vehicles are bigger than yours, they may carry handguns and will routinely run through amber lights as they change to red - as will many Capetonians.