Sanral ordered to withdraw misleading e-tolls ads

The Advertising Standards Authority of SA (ASA) ordered the SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) to withdraw certain e-toll adverts, which were deemed misleading.

The ruling follows three complaints lodged with the authority against claims made in the road agency’s e-toll commercials – submitted by a member of the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) and two other consumers.

The authority ruled in favour of the complainants on all counts, citing that the adverts were unsubstantiated and misleading.

According to the alliance, the roads agency was ordered to withdraw the advertising “with immediate effect” and was further instructed that it “must not be used again in its current format unless new substantiation has been submitted, evaluated and accepted by means of a new Directorate ruling.”

The alliance’s social media consultant Rob Hutchinson and a consumer, Sheleen Long lodged complaints against two aspects of a roads agency radio commercial.

One complaint was made against the merits of figures used in a statement in the advert thanking “people and organisations that have taken up 1.2 million tags for the Gauteng e-roads”.

A further complaint was made against another statement in the advert which claimed that e-toll compliant motorists had “recognised the benefits of the improved roads …keeping the lights on and the cameras watching over you”.

The third complaint, lodged by Stephen Haywood, disputed the road agency’s claims regarding the road users’ average monthly costs of e-tolls.

He argued that the claims were “flawed and ambiguous, if not disingenuous”.

The roads agency claimed that more than 82.83 percent of motorists would pay less than R100 per month and only one percent of road users would pay more than R400 per month.

However, Haywood calculated the costs, based of known traffic volumes between Johannesburg and Pretoria, and found that the actual figures were vastly different.

He argued that in all likelihood less than eight percent would pay less than R100 per month of motorists while 10 percent would pay more than R400 per month (and reach the e-tagged capped amount of R450 per month).

Regarding the first complaint, the authority said the roads agency had not provided proof of the number of e-tags sold, despite being given sufficient time to substantiate its claim.

The authority therefore ruled the claim was both unsubstantiated and misleading and in contravention of Clause 4.1 of Section II of its code.

Ruling on the second complaint, the authority said the cameras were not “watching over you” as a safety measure, and this claim created a “misleading impression, and exaggerates the functionality and the purpose of the cameras” since “they serve no safety purpose and are merely used for billing purposes”.

On the third complaint, the authority ruled that the roads agency was given time to substantiate their calculations, but failed to do so and the complaint was therefore upheld.

The alliance spokesperson, John Clarke said, “These ASA rulings are significant because they once again portray Sanral as an organisation that lacks transparency and cannot be trusted with their misleading advertising and PR campaigns.”