
South Africa’s Department of Transport has announced that the country’s new driver’s licence demerit system will be rolled out in stages.
This is according to a report by BusinessTech, which covered a parliamentary briefing by Transport Director-General Alec Moemi.
The demerit system forms part of the rollout of the Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act, which will take effect from 1 July 2021.
Under the new system, local drivers will be given demerit points when they break traffic rules – with a set amount of demerit points allocated depending on the severity of the offence.
Rand-value fines will be allocated alongside demerit points, too.
For example: If you fail to obey a Stop sign, you will receive a R1,500 fine and have two demerit points added to your licence.
If a driver commits multiple offences in a set period of time, they can have their driver’s licence suspended.
A breakdown of the licence suspension conditions is below:
- Total points: A maximum of 15 demerit points can be received by a driver. After this, they will be disqualified from driving their vehicle.
- Duration: The duration of the disqualification will equal three months for every point over the 15-point limit.
If a driver receives three licence disqualifications under the Aarto system, their licence will be taken away.
You can see the full list of traffic offences and their associated demerit points in this article: How many demerit points you will get for breaking traffic laws
Rollout stages
Moemi said that the first phase of the Aarto rollout will consist of “setting up the registry and other requirements”, stated the report.
This will be required to introduce the demerit system. No set date for the launch of the demerit system itself was announced.
Moemi added that all elements of the Aarto Act will ultimately be rolled out over five stages. Again, no timelines were provided.
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