Foreigners, reckless drivers must pay for damage they cause: transport DG

The raging debate on whether government should overhaul the Road Accident Fund (RAF) in its current form and replace it with the Road Accident Benefits Scheme (Rabs), or simply change a few things, is well and good.

But whichever side of that divide wins, said transport director-general Alec Moemi on Monday, one thing is not debatable — there must be exclusions of people who are not eligible to claim for road accidents and not be compensated by the government.

One such exclusion should be cases where a foreign national causes an accident while driving on South African roads without accident insurance.

Another category that ought to be excluded are motorists who cause accidents because of disobeying road rules, which is equal to criminal conduct.

The Rabs bill is now before parliament, and there is a strong lobby against it.

Moemi said it might well be that there was no need for Rabs if exclusions can be accommodated by the current RAF legislation to make the fund financially sustainable.

For Moemi, it was unthinkable that foreigners who visited SA were simply allowed to hire cars without insurance and go on to cause road accidents — the financial damages thereof falling into the government’s lap.

“Here in SA when we have a foreigner who comes on to our roads and drives here without insurance and causes an accident, the Road Accident Fund must step in,” said Moemi. “All of this is not correct because in other countries, when you fly in, if you were to rent a car they ask you 'where is your insurance' and if you do not have it on they are able to sell you insurance which covers you in the event of an accident.

“But in SA, a foreigner lands at OR Tambo, goes to Avis and gets a car and when they cause an accident government is liable to pay. There was an incident of a doctor who cost us a lot of money with just one claim.”

But what is worse, he said, was that road accidents emanating from criminal conduct of motorists was also not factored in when the government compensated claimants involved in such accidents.

In this regard, the government should continue compensating claimants but must move to further pursue motorists, such as those who cause accidents from drunk-driving and reckless and negligent driving. These motorists, Moemi submitted, must be pursued criminally and/or in civil claims to recoup the money paid.

Paying claimants who caused accidents because they broke the law was tantamount to “rewarding illegality”.

Said Moemi: “The future Rabs must also have inclusions for illegality for those that commit wrongdoing, such as overtaking on a barrier line. They should not be liable to claim from the RAF. The state must go after them hard and fast.

“The state must pay the [pedestrian or another driver not in the wrong] and go hard and fast on those who commit criminality on our roads.”

He said the state could approach the issue either from a criminal point of view, or via a civil-claim set-up, or both.

If the government could make these changes within the existing RAF legislation, said Moemi, the question was whether it would be necessary to go ahead with the Rabs bill.

“If we are to go on this pathway and we do all these interventions and they are to make the current Road Accident Fund sustainable, perhaps after all we may not need the Rabs as a new scheme. We may seek to strengthen the current RAF by [putting all these exclusions into the current model.”

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