EDITORIAL | Put the brakes on crooks exploiting confusion over SA’s looming licence demerit points system

It’s not without irony that the government’s ambitious but long-delayed plan to remove habitual traffic offenders from the country’s roads is being used by thugs as a vehicle to trick motorists into paying non-existent “ghost fines”.

The Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences Act (Aarto) will finally ― if the powers that be can be believed this time around ― be rolled out nationally in phases from December 1, with a demerit points system coming into effect countrywide on September 1 2026. The act was originally passed into law in 1998 and has thus far been piloted in Tshwane and Johannesburg.

At first glance, the new system is somewhat complex. Motorists will have a fair amount of reading up to do to digest how it could result in their licence being suspended or land them behind bars.

Demerit points differ according to the type of offences committed. There is a sliding scale of fines for exceeding the speed limit in urban (60km/h), rural (100km/h) and freeway (120km/h) zones. Drivers face arrest for exceeding the urban limit by 30km/h and 40km/h on freeways (this penalty includes six demerit points).

Once 15 demerit points have been racked up, a licence can be suspended for three months. Two suspensions trigger a licence cancellation with the errant driver having to start from scratch to obtain a new one. On the flipside, accumulated demerit points fall away after a prescribed period of “good behaviour” behind the wheel.

Understandably, the new system has resulted a fair bit of confusion for many motorists and that’s where the scammers are feeding at the trough, based on complaints from hoodwinked victims.

TimesLIVE reported this week on a steep rise in fraudulent “ghost fine” scams as criminals exploit confusion around Aarto.

Motorists were urged to watch out for fake SMS and WhatsApp messages demanding immediate payment for so-called outstanding “traffic fines” that are fictitious. The victims are then directed to cloned websites that mimic official municipal and traffic fine platforms to make the payment. The money vanishes.

It’s the kind of stuff that makes people opine, “South Africa is a movie!” Does anything shock us anymore?

Anybody who drives or commutes often in our major cities, townships, suburbs and national routes during the holidays will be acutely aware of the reckless behaviour of drivers and pedestrians.

The annual death toll is staggering ― enough mothers, fathers, children, friends and loved ones to fill all the Sandton Convention Centre.

Transport minister Barbara Creecy said in early December last year, launching the festive season road safety campaign, that 10,154 people had perished on the country’s roads during 2024.

[In 2023], road crashes cost our economy no less than R205bn. That translates into a whopping 2.74% of GDP for 2023.

—  Barbara Creecy, transport minister

The cost of the carnage is equally alarming. “The impact is measured in terms of human lives lost, pain, grief and suffering and comes at a significant cost to the economy. In addition to the human cost, the cost of crashes includes vehicle repair costs and related incident costs. [In 2023], road crashes cost our economy no less than R205bn. That translates into a whopping 2.74% of GDP for 2023,” said Creecy.

Clearly, something drastic needs to be done because as a nation we’ve developed an entrenched culture of flouting the rules of the road and a lack of respect for the law.

Aarto, we believe, could be a step in the right direction to change that, but it’s not necessarily a silver bullet. It will only change behaviour provided it is implemented on time, run efficiently, honestly and adopts a zero-tolerance approach to enforcement and corruption.

There needs to be a concerted effort to root out corruption at licencing centres to prevent a scofflaw with a cancelled licence, for example, simply buying a fraudulent one from a crooked official.

As for the scamsters taking advantage of the confusion, motorists should be vigilant and only use official channels to verify if they have outstanding fines. Of course, there is one simple thing we can all do to dodge the scamsters and anxiety over how Aarto will affect our driving record ― just obey the rules of the road!