Good news for motorists caught speeding in South Africa

A South African court has ruled that it is unlawful and unconstitutional for police to arrest and detain motorists for speeding without a warrant.

This legal precedent was established by the Western Cape High Court after an individual was detained for several hours for an alleged speeding offence.

Hymie Zilwa, an attorney from the Eastern Cape, was arrested in 2019 for traveling 188km/h in a 120km/h zone near Lainsburg in the Karoo.

He challenged the arrest in the Western Cape High Court, arguing that he was not the one driving the car at the time the speeding offence was recorded by average speed-over-distance cameras.

Instead, he had taken possession of the vehicle shortly before being stopped by the police and was detained for speeding.

“I had just taken possession of the vehicle when the police were looking at their device, and they saw that the vehicle, about 30 minutes ago, was speeding,” Zilwa explained in an interview with Cape Talk.

“I made it clear to them that I was not the one who was driving; they flatly refused.”

He also said he told the police he could contact the individual who was driving at the time to come and testify to the offence, but the police refused.

The court ultimately ruled that Zilwa was arrested without a warrant, and that speeding is not a Schedule 1 offence.

This means that Zilwa should not not have been arrested without a warrant in the absence of any reasonable grounds to suspect he had committed a Schedule 1 offence.

This led Judge Pearl Deidré Andrews to conclude that Zilwa’s arrest was unlawful and unconstitutional.

“Ultimately, it follows, axiomatically, that the Plaintiff’s detention was unlawful because his arrest was unlawful,” she added in her ruling.

According to Zilwa, this ruling sets a legal precedent in South Africa that motorists cannot be arrested for speeding without a warrant, even if they were driving well over the legal limit.

“If you are caught speeding, you have to be issued a traffic fine, or if it is a speed where there is no fine prescribed, then you need to be given something that is going to make you appear in court,” he said.

“You can’t detain a person and put them in the cells.”

What this means for South Africa’s new driving laws

The new ruling is likely to have an impact on the Administrative Adjudication of Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act, which is set to be implemented on 1 July 2026.

Aarto will make sweeping changes to the country’s driving laws, including speeding.

Under the new system, motorists will have a “tolerance” of 10km/h above the specified speed limit which will not result in a fine.

It will also divide speeding offences into 2km/h ranges for three types of roads – urban, rural, and highways.

The higher the threshold, the higher the individual’s fine and demerit points will be. However, there is also a maximum threshold for each road type.

Importantly, a person who exceeds the speed limit by the maximum threshold can be arrested under the Aarto system.

For urban roads, this means exceeding a 60km/h limit by 30km/h, while rural areas have a higher threshold of 40km/h for roads with a 100km/h speed limit.

Highways, where the national speed limit is 120km/h, have a threshold of 100km/h.

In addition to a fine, motorists will receive a number of demerit point on their licences, depending on the severity of the offence.

Once a person exceeds the new 15-point limit, their licence will be suspended for several months. During this time, driving a car will be considered a criminal offence.

It’s currently unclear how new legal precedent that drivers cannot be arrested and detained for speeding without a warrant will affect Aarto, where motorists can be arrested and receive 6 demerit points for exceeding the maximum speeding threshold.

These are the fine amounts and demerit points that will be applied for for various speeding violations in different areas.