February 2010

While it has been announced in some media that the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences system (Aarto) will be rolled out nationally on April 1st this year, transport legislation consultant and FleetWatch correspondent on legislation, Alta Swanepoel, says that the Minister of Transport may have been incorrectly quoted.

“If you read his press statement, he said it will be rolled out over the 2010/2011 financial year. I do not think anything except the Aarto publicity campaign will start before later in the year. Proclamations need to signed by the President before anything can be implemented and I do not think DoT has sent a proclamation off to the Presidency yet. It will be a tall order to have AARTO introduced in the entire country in one day,” she says.

FleetWatch’s guess is they won’t but while we all wait with baited breath, readers can note that Aarto has a new domain name. It is www.aartosa.co.za

The new name came about as a result of the Road Traffic Management Corporation neglecting to pay the R50 annual registration fee for its original name www.aarto.co.za which was quickly snapped up in July last year by the Justice Project South Africa (JPSA), a non-profit organisation set up to lobby against the abuse of power by law enforcement officials.

While the JPSA put the domain name on auction, national chairman, Howard Dembovsky, says in spite of receiving a number of lucrative offers, the association decided against the sale to prevent it falling into the wrong hands.

“One can imagine the chaos that could be created if someone got hold of this web address and set up a bogus Aarto site in which the public may have thought they were paying their traffic fines,” he comments.

Dembovsky says that as opposed to creating bad blood between the JPSA and the RTMC, the association’s chutzpah (some may call it impudence) has resulted in a warming of relations and improved dialogue between the two organisations.

Transport Minister Sibusiso Ndebele is confident the Aarto system will significantly reduce road crashes and deaths.

"The implementation of Aarto and the Points Demerit System throughout South Africa will certainly reduce lawlessness on our roads and contribute significantly to a reduction in road crashes and deaths," he says. "Aarto will also improve the overall safety of road users and encourage responsible road behaviour."

The objectives of Aarto included penalising drivers and operators guilty of offences through the imposition of demerit points, leading to the suspension and cancellation of driving licences, professional driving permits or operator cards.