What every motorist should know about Aarto demerit points

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JEREMY MAGGS: The Aarto (Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences) rollout, as you well know, is continuing, but questions around readiness, fairness and enforcement are not going away. Now, as I understand it, the demerit system is meant to change driver behaviour and make roads safer. We should welcome that. But motorists are also asking a very practical question: Could someone else’s offence end up costing me my licence?

Well, let’s get a little more detail on the rollout. I’m in conversation now with Monde Mkalipi, who speaks for the Road Traffic Infringement Agency. Monde, a very warm welcome, and just very bluntly here, can someone else’s bad driving cost me demerit points?

MONDE MKALIPI: It’s only your driving that will really cost you demerit points, that will cause you to be allocated with demerit points, Jeremy. In the sense that if you operate a vehicle and perhaps you commit an infringement on the road and then you admit guilt. An admission of guilt can be taken in many ways, going to pay to resolve that particular infringement means you are admitting guilt and then demerit points will be allocated. So that is how it is going to work.

Demerit points differ depending on the severity of the infringement.

So how it works is that if perhaps you commit an infringement, you go through a red light and then, you get fined, demerit points are allocated to you, and then those are likely to build up. The more infringements you commit on the road, the more demerit points are going to be allocated to you.

Then once they reach the 15th demerit point, that is the cut-off point. If you exceed that threshold point, touching on the 16th demerit point and above that, your driving licence is going to be suspended. Then the system also works backwards in the sense that the more compliant you are with traffic laws, the lesser demerit points you are likely to have, meaning they are going to be deducted, they’re going to be reduced.

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I should also make it clear, Jeremy, from the onset, that the way we are going to apply the system in South Africa is that we are going to start from zero, not in the way that other countries do it. That is, give you a certain number of points and then you get deducted.

So they get to be accumulated. The 15th demerit point, you get on to the 16th one, the suspension happens twice, if you go over the threshold two times, and then on the third time that you go over and above the 15th demerit point, that’s when your driving licence is going to be disqualified from driving on our roads, up until you have gone through successfully a driver rehabilitation programme. It’s only then that you will be allowed to restart and get a new driving licence.

JEREMY MAGGS: I just want to circle back very quickly to my original question. If my car is driven by a family member, an employee or a mechanic, who carries the penalty, and what would a vehicle owner need to do to prove that they were not the driver?

MONDE MKALIPI: Well, what happens if you’ve got a fleet of vehicles, let’s say you own taxis, Jeremy, and then these taxis are registered in your name, and you have employed someone else to drive the vehicle, and then that person happens to commit an infringement, let’s say, gets a camera ticket. That ticket is obviously going to come to you as the owner.

How the system works is that once it arrives to you as the owner, Aarto has got a way in which you are enabled to redirect the ticket to your employee, the person who you have employed to operate your taxi.

Then when that person receives the ticket, he or she will also go through the normal Aarto process in terms of the Aarto elective options. He or she can request to pay the 50% discount within the first 32 days, or request to pay in instalments. After the payment has been made, demerit points are allocated to that person, not you as the owner. Because you have a system that is enabled through the legislation, that you redirect the ticket to the person who was operating the vehicle at the time the infringement was committed.

JEREMY MAGGS: I’ve got to ask you this question. Do you think the system is simple enough for ordinary motorists to understand?

MONDE MKALIPI: Well, some say it is a bit cumbersome, and I think the responsibility and the huge obligation is on us as the Road Traffic Infringement Agency to make sure that we communicate and we simplify the process as much as possible, and we also set up systems that are also going to make it work. Because now we are going to have a national contravention register and that is where all the infringements are going to be loaded.

It is also incumbent on each and every motorist, that every time he or she goes to renew their driving licences or licence disc annually, they update their details and also they get to check if they’ve got any infringements that are outstanding, or if they’ve got any demerit points that are accumulating against their name.

So it’s quite important that we ourselves as motorists, keep on checking. Because even with us as the Road Traffic Infringement Agency, we do have information points where road users can go and get more information about this.

JEREMY MAGGS: Monde, the reality is, and you know this as well as I do, that motorists are not going to do that. We’re not going to check up on our own behaviour.

MONDE MKALIPI: Yeah, you know how it works, previously with the Criminal Procedure Act, that was happening because people wouldn’t go and check their traffic funds because the expectation was that those would go to court and they never went to court anyway.

But Aarto has got very strict timelines where you are provided with all the options to really resolve your traffic fines.

The 50%, I’ve spoken about, the right to submit a representation, but if the road user or the motorist fails to take advantage of those elective options that are legislated, the system builds up where we as the Road Traffic Infringement Agency send you a courtesy letter to remind you that you committed an infringement and these are your rights.

Enforcement orders

If you still fail to take advantage of those rights, the system [pinpoints] you and we issue what is called an enforcement order. So between a period of two months and three months, that’s when the enforcement order is likely to be issued. That becomes very, very difficult for the motorist because now you can’t transact on [SA road system], you can’t renew your driving licence, you can’t renew your licence disc, even your professional driving permit, you can’t renew it.

That’s why we say that the introduction of Aarto is a game-changer, in the sense that nobody is going to sit now and ignore their traffic fines because the system is going to catch up with you. Then we may have to make sure that you account for your actions at the end of the day.

JEREMY MAGGS: Is it a game changer? That’s what you talk about. Is it about road safety or is it just another big revenue collection machine?

MONDE MKALIPI: Jeremy, at the centre of Aarto it is coming in as a road safety intervention because at the end of the day, as you have said in your intro, the system is designed to change the behaviour of the road users so that we get to be more compliant with traffic laws.

Because if the system catches up with what we call habitual infringers in the sense of the demerit point system, then road users are blocked from operating on our roads.

Then at the end of the day, they will have to change their behaviour. Because if you’re running a business, even if you are working for your own family or you have any type of a business that requires you to be on the road, you have to comply at the end of the day because the system is going to close you out.

You are going to be requested to come forward and account for your actions. It should really make sure that we reduce the number of crashes that occur on the road, leading to the reduction of fatalities that also happen.

JEREMY MAGGS: It’s early days, let’s see how all of this pans out. Monde Mkalipi speaks for the Road Traffic Infringement Agency. Thank you very much indeed.