What is AARTO? |
AARTO is the abbreviation for the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences Act and is the new “administrator” of the National Road Traffic Act. In layman's terms it means that AARTO is responsible for the administration, collection and adjudication of fines related to road traffic offenses. This act was born in 1998 and amended several times during the past 12 years. The amended acts are act 22 of 1999, act 24 of 2000 and act 72 of 2002. The relevant regulations and schedules were published on 16 July 2008 in government gazette notice 31242. AARTO was initially set to roll out nationally on 1 November 2010 and this was published in government gazette notice 33114 on 16 April 2010 but recently retracted by President Jacob Zuma in government gazette notice 33341 on 30 June 2010. This was as a result of pressure by the Cape Metropolitan Council alleging that there were too many loopholes and administrative implications in the new act. The RTMC (Road Traffic Management Corporation) however indicated that the act will be implemented nationally on the 1st of April 2011. It must be stressed that in the meantime AARTO remains effective in Johannesburg and Pretoria without the demerit points. According to Section 1 of the act its purpose is to; (a) to encourage compliance with the national and provincial laws, municipal by-laws relating to road traffic and to promote road traffic safety; (b) to encourage the payment of penalties imposed for infringements and to allow alleged minor infringers to make representations; (c) to establish a procedure for the effective and expeditious adjudication of infringements; (d) to alleviate the burden on the courts of trying offenders for infringements; (e) to penalize drivers and operators who are guilty of infringements or offences through the imposition of demerit points leading to the suspension and cancellation of driving licences, professional driving permits or operator cards; (f) to reward law-abiding behaviour by reducing demerit points where they have been incurred if infringements or offences are not committed over specified periods; (g) to establish an agency to support the law enforcement and judicial authorities and to undertake the administrative adjudication process; and (h) to strengthen co-operation between the prosecuting and law enforcement authorities by establishing a board to govern the agency. |