Government mulls Aarto options for foreign drivers

Foreign drivers in South Africa will be penalised under the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences Act (Aarto) even though the demerit point system won’t necessarily be applied to them. According to Japh Chuwe, registrar of the Road Traffic Infringement Agency, the government can obviously not leverage demerit points on a foreign driver’s licence, but the matter is being addressed. “This particular subject has been debated quite extensively,” he said recently. “Initially the thought was that if we could not levy the demerit points, in lieu of those points we would triple the monetary value of the fine.” This, however, has not been determined as yet, he said. “We are at this point amending regulations to ensure that we treat all foreigners on an equal basis,” he said. On the subject of the taxi industry in KwaZulu-Natal that has called for no law enforcement of the industry during rush hour and to only be addressed in their mother tongue, Chuwe dispelled rumours that government was afraid of this particular industry. “We are very definitely not scared of the taxi industry,” he said. “We take them on the same way as we take on the road freight industry.”