Beware fleet owners, as you will have to pay 50% more for the prescribed fines, instead of half price currently offered by AARTO, for traffic fines issued in Johannesburg.
This comes after the JHB Metro police (JMPD) on the 1st of April began applying a new provision in the AARTO Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences Act that only comes into full force later in 2010, together with the new demerit system
All AARTO fines currently offer a 50% discount if paid in full within 32 days, but now if you look at the web-based payment system, "Payfine" the new amount payable for company vehicles is now 50% more.
Our company did an enquiry and were told that the fine discount trebles if the company pays it rather than having the issued fine reissued to the driver concerned that committed the offence. The painful reissuing process is administratively demanding and most companies often prefer to pay themselves and to deal with it until the full demerit system comes into effect.
Companies simply don't know the law and the legal rights concerning their drivers committing traffic offenses.
The new AARTO system is currently only applicable only in the Johannesburg and Pretoria area.
On July 1 2010 AARTO comes into force in Ekurhuleni area (Gauteng's East Rand), eThekwini (Durban), also Nelson Mandela Bay (Port Elizabeth) and also Cape Town, but without the new demerit system in effect.
According to a public notice in the Government Gazette, the full demerit point system comes into full operation countrywide on November 1 2010, but rumors are that it will be postponed until January 2011.
