Greed set to derail worthwhile cause

Be afraid – be very afraid.

That would be the most logical way for motorists to react to the planned implementation of the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act.

Not because Aarto will pose a deterrent to reckless or negligent drivers via a series of licence demerit points for serious road offences. That part of the legislation will be welcomed by all responsible road users. It may even, at last, constitute a government action that actually does something to help contain our horrendous road death tally.

But, in typical South African parasitic style, our powers that unfortunately be are hijacking Aarto in order to create yet another cash cow. This was pointed out by the Automobile Association (AA) last week.

The AA noticed that the government had snuck a single line into the Aarto legislation, which says and additional R100 will be added to every fine issued, regardless of the value of the fine or its associated demerit points.

“Assuming 20 million infringement notices are issued annually, this would amount to a R2 billion windfall for the Road Traffic Infringement Agency, via a single line of legislation,” the AA says.

“A good analogy would be to consider Sars charging every taxpayer a fee for submitting tax returns,” it added.

That is not where the government’s Aarto money-raking ends. It will cost you up to R240 simply to enquire as to the status of your demerit points, via a complicated and cumbersome system. There is, according to the Aarto legislation no provision for online enquiries.

Complicated and cumbersome – like e-toll fine collections. Which, by the way, are still part of the Aarto draft legislation. Even though numerous law experts have denounced it as ridiculous, the current bill still maintains that motorists will break the law by not paying e-tolls.

They say driving past an e-toll information board and then not paying electronically at the next gantry amounts to ignoring a legitimate road sign. Thus, they will fine you for ignoring their directive to give the government money.

The government likes “complicated and cumbersome” as it creates opportunities for the creation of massive, expensive bureaucracies in which useless cadres thrive. It is really, really sad that government greed is tainting the only good idea regarding the fighting of our road slaughter in decades.

Licence demerit systems work well in countries like Germany and Sweden, whose road fatalities are a fraction of ours. But then again, their governments actually work.