Scrap ‘unworkable’ Aarto

UNPROCEDURAL: MORE THAN HALF OF CLIENTS’ INFRINGEMENT NOTICES CANCELLED - FINES4U

- Antoinette Slabbert

BLOCKED. The implementation of Aarto was recently postponed to due to 'municipal unreadiness'.

(Picture: Reuters)

After numerous false starts and the inability to roll out the controversial Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act countrywide, 27 years after it was enacted, it must now be repealed once and for all.

That is the opinion of Cornelia van Niekerk, owner of Fines4U, a company that manages traffic fines on behalf of 700 companies and 1 500 individuals.

Rob Handfield-Jones, managing director of driving.co.za and a specialist in driver training, agrees.

He has written to the parliamentary portfolio committee on transport to propose certain changes to two Acts - the Criminal Procedure Act and National Road Traffic Act and its regulations — to achieve the same goals Aarto was originally aimed at.

Handfield-Jones further proposes the disbandment of the Road Traffic Infringement Agency (RTIA), whose sole purpose is the administration of Aarto, including the envisaged contravention register where demerit points will be captured.

The RTIA’s 2023-24 annual report indicates it spent R112 million on employee costs that year, which was more than its income from traffic fines.

It further reported R152 million in grant income.