Aarto: Setting itself up to be SA’s next etolls failure

Already rejected by the Western Cape government, its full implementation on the rocks and constitutionality challenged, the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act has stirred a sense of etolls déjà vu.

The contentious points-demerit system, where a driver loses points for different traffic transgressions which could eventually lead to them losing their driving licences, was supposed to come into effect on July 1 but has been delayed by another year.

Road crashes claim an average of 14 000 lives per year in SA, amongst the highest in the world, with the costs to the economy estimated at over R150-billion annually, but the government’s decade of road safety awareness campaigns has seemingly yielded no results.

Aarto’s intention is to arrest this situation and foster a culture of road safety and compliance but critiques, as had been the case with the e-tolls, have once again warned that the system was unworkable, driven by revenue collection, and an administrative nightmare doomed for failure.

Though there has been no official scrapping of the e-tolls system as yet, the writing on its fate has been on the wall for some time now and its collapse appears imminent due to massive non-compliance and a dismal collection rate.

Government didn’t learn from etolls

According to the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), government pushed the system through despite massive public opposition, constitutional and administrative challenges, and is now left with an egg on the face.

Outa, which was originally formed in 2012 to fight e-tolling as Opposition Against Urban Tolling Alliance, warned that government is once again applying the notion that if what they want was framed in a legislative and regulatory structure, then everything would fall into place.

While pro-Aarto’s point demerit system, the Automobile Association (AA), believe Aarto was unworkable with the chaos at the National Traffic Information System (eNatis)-the official register for all vehicles, driving licence, contravention and accident data in SA-said to be about 50% accurate, as well as corruption.

The association, which had also warned about the fate of etolls on their inception about a decade ago, said aspects of the amendments to the Aarto regulations did promote road safety, but the legislation was mainly geared towards revenue collection.

Spokesperson Layton Beard said while there was no consultation and public submissions on etolls, they were given an opportunity to make submissions on Aarto.

“E-tolls were driven by financial imperatives, to collect what had been spent on setting them up and followed different processes but you have similarities with how government is going about Aarto. Now we are told it will rolled out in phases. So the question whether Aarto will be implemented will depend on the next six months,” he said.

Could be an even bigger failure than etolls

Outa is concerned that the sense of déjà vu surrounding Aarto is striking and that government is once again pushing on with Aarto despite public opposition and warnings that it will fail.

“The reality of Aarto is that similar to e-tolls, probably far worse actually, the scheme is unable to be administered, it is cumbersome and probably will not be enforceable. OUTA also has a legal challenge in court in October regarding a few constitutional issues. For all these reasons, yes, we do have a project to tackle the Aarto matter, in a similar manner to the e-toll one,” chief executive Wayne Duvenage said.

Trying to introduce legislation and regulations and amending those was one way to curb the road carnage, but he said the problem was that unless one has administration that is workable and public backing, these projects tend to fail.

He said demerit point systems work around the world when there is good administration and reliable vehicle registry systems, saying it is common knowledge that eNatis is only about 50% accurate in its functioning.

According to the transport Department, there are four phases to the Aarto roll-out.

• Phase 1 will run from today until 30 September 2021, during which seven AARTO service outlets will be established nationally, the eNATIS will be enabled to collect AARTO payments, and will include a communications campaign to educate motorists on AARTO;
• Phase 2 will run from 1 October to 31 December 2021 during which 67 local metropolitan authorities will ‘come online’ for AARTO processing, the adjudication process and Appeals Tribunal will start functioning, 18 more AARTO service outlets will be established;
• Phase 3 will commence on 1 January 2022 and run until 30 June 2022 during which 144 municipal areas will be added to the AARTO system, and;
• Phase 4 which will begin 1 July 2022 and which will see the introduction of the Points Demerit System as well as the rehabilitation programme for repeat offenders which serves as the backbone of AARTO.