The Justice Project SA (JPSA) says the Department of Transport (DOT) is sidelining the Administrative Adjudication of Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act in the face of the Gauteng e-tolling system.
The organisation points to the fact that the summit on Aarto has once again been postponed. It was initially supposed to take place in June, was then pushed to July, and subsequently August. The summit for public consultations around Aarto is now expected to happen in September.
“We fear that if things continue like this, it will continue being put off indefinitely and no progress will be made, leading to a further loss of credibility.”
The JPSA says the Gauteng e-tolling issue is receiving a lot of focus and Aarto keeps getting pushed to the side.
“We are not saying that the e-tolling issue is unimportant, but what we are saying is that Aarto is equally, if not more, important, as it affects the entire nation.”
There has been large focus on e-tolling since Cabinet approved the reduced tariffs, and the DOT said implementation will happen over the next five months.
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National chairperson of the JPSA Howard Dembovsky has written an open letter to transport minister Sibusiso Ndebele around the matter.
The main questions posed in the letter include why Aarto is constantly delayed and no progress is being made; why the summit is continuously postponed with still no concrete date for it; and why the fact that Aarto is being unlawfully applied by the Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) for over 14 months now is being ignored by the minister, when he has full knowledge of it doing so.
The JMPD has been issuing infringement notices via ordinary post, which violates the Aarto Act, since it says all infringement notices must be delivered via registered mail.
Dembovsky also says the time to start behaving on SA's roads is right now. “Why are South Africans being allowed to die on our roads in their droves when a points demerit system is rearing to go, and we all know that it will have a marked impact on reducing bad driver behaviour, and as a result, road fatalities?
“Surely, the time has come to get on with doing what we say is going to happen instead of constantly speaking of action and then failing to carry it out.”
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Dembovsky says Aarto is way more pressing than e-tolling.
“[It's a more] important and urgent issue than tolls since it can actually save some lives - not just make its 'stakeholders' filthy rich if it is implemented properly and sooner rather than later.”
He adds that it is high time everyone grows up and understands that traffic enforcement is supposed to save lives and “not make a profit for those who pretend to enforce our laws so that they may enrich themselves”.
It is also time those who feel they are exempt from the law be shown that they will have their driving licences suspended if they don't toe the line, and it is time that the minister and his counterparts stop threatening and start doing what they have said they will for 13 years now, according to Dembovsky.
In July, the RTMC said it could not comment on why the summit did not go ahead as planned.
“The minister never announced a date for the summit, so one can't talk about postponement. What the minister did say is that there will be a summit this year and it is on track,” says DOT spokesperson Logan Maistry.
He adds that the current national Road Traffic Act is adequate, but Aarto is more for the benefit of the driver. With the current Act, a licence can be suspended immediately, but with Aarto the driver has to receive all their demerit points first. Also, with Aarto, drivers get discounts for fines, according to Maistry.
“The current road traffic act allows us to do what we need to. So there is no hampering of legislation.”
The spokesperson also says Aarto was only postponed because the minister received representations by municipalities and provinces. “We want to make sure everyone gets representation at the summit.”
He adds that all the department wants to do is make sure the issues raised around Aarto are addressed. There is steady progress towards the summit and towards national roll-out.
Public discussion
The Act was supposed to be rolled out around April, but the DOT decided to hold public consultations on the matter first.
This was to avoid the backlash that accompanied the controversial Gauteng e-tolling project, where toll fees were announced with no public engagement and then suspended due to outrage over the prices and system as a whole.
A period of time was given for written submissions from the public on Aarto, and has subsequently closed. The RTMC says it only received 13 comments on Aarto during that time.
The summit is the next step in the consultation process. It will see industry players and stakeholders, including organised labour, municipalities, provinces and taxi organisations, come together to address the Act.
Expensive IT
With the Aarto system, drivers get demerit points when they commit traffic offences, and this will be reflected on the National Contravention Register on eNatis. After 12 demerits are gained, a driver's licence will be suspended.
The RTMC previously said it would spend over R300 million on IT and marketing for the demerit system.
The e-tolling project is an open road, multilane toll infrastructure that allows tolls to be charged without drivers having to stop. There are no physical booths.
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