How „ much bad driving will cost you

Traffic officers ready to snatch licences away

FOR Durban’s habitual traffic offenders, the stroke of the president’s pen could bring dire consequences if they continue with their reckless ways on the roads.

The controversial demerit system, which is part of the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Amendment Bill, is close to being implemented after a decade of waiting.

The new system will see traffic offenders accumulating penalty points, together with fines.

It will work with each driver beginning with a clean slate of zero points.

Different traffic infringements will have different points.

Driving without a licence will cost four demerit points. Drunk driving will be worth six demerit points, while being caught using a cellphone while driving will cost one point.

Once a driver exceeds 12 points, their licence is suspended.

Three suspensions and the driver permanently loses his or her licence.

With the demerit system will come new road traffic violation rules which will remove the courts from the Aarto process and replace them with a dedicated authority.

This amendment, which was introduced as a pilot project in Johannesburg and Tshwane in 2008, was adopted by the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) this week.

The amendment to the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences was also approved by Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Transport.

The amendment bill will now go to the National Assembly for voting and if Parliament adopts the bill, it will go to President Cyril Ramaphosa to be signed into law.

Minister of Transport Blade Nzimande this week welcomed the “progressive move” by the Portfolio Committee on Transport to accept the final amendments on the Aarto bill.

He argued that this legislation would go a long way towards dealing with South Africa’s high road accident, death and injury rates.

“The country experiences an average of just under 14000 deaths a year, which equates to about 38 people every day losing their lives on our roads,” Nzimande said.

“The implementation of Aarto is among the critical interventions to reduce these fatalities and save lives on our roads.”

But other organisations don’t agree that this is the answer to road fatalities and injuries.

AA spokesperson Layton Beard agrees that significant strides need to be taken to make the country’s roads safer, but he is not convinced that the Aarto amendment bill is the answer.

Beard said that he had doubts about the implementation of the bill and added that reducing road fatalities should be the primary concern rather than the collection of revenue.

“The high accident rate every year, as well as road deaths and injuries, should be the driving force of the bill, not the collection of revenue.”

Beard said the only viable longterm solution to make the roads safer was to have increased and effective policing.

“There also needs to be an intensive education of drivers, including future drivers and those under the age of 16, because the rules of the road need to be taught from an early age.”

These sentiments were shared by the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), whose transport portfolio manager, Rudie Heyneke, also stressed the importance of visible policing.

“Studies have shown that visible policing is one of the most effective methods of crime prevention and of reducing traffic violations,” said Heyneke.

He added that he was not confident that this legislation could enhance road safety.

Another element of the Aarto amendment bill was that traffic offences would be placed in what Nzimande described as an “effective, efficient and streamlined system” that would take pressure off a strained court system.

But this feature has also been widely criticised as unconstitutional.

Justice Project South Africa chairperson Howard Dembovsky said “this is unconstitutional because it is predicated on the presumption of guilt and the constitution is predicated on the presumption of innocence”.

Beard agreed and added that the AA’s concern was around the constitutional provisions in relation to a person’s ability to challenge a fine, while Heyneke said that Outa was outraged that the constitutionality of the amendments would take away an individual’s right to a fair trial.

Dembovsky added that the new system shouldn’t simply turn driving offences into invoices.

Despite widespread criticism of the amendment bill, many agree that the demerit system, which could see a motorist’s driver’s licence being suspended or removed, could be positive if the entire system was implemented properly.

The Department of Transport believes it will force habitual traffic offenders to face the consequences.

“It will be the first time that the government brings certainty and an effective mechanism to ensure that persistent offenders are taken off the road through licence suspension or the removal of the operators’ licences,” said Nzimande.

“The system brings with it improved fine collection procedures and a revenue stream that will be used to improve road safety, as well as more convenient ways of paying fines.”