E-toll prosecution process begins: report

House said:
Well, an application brought by the DA to have e-Tolls declared unconstitutional and invalid has already been dismissed by a High Court. So, for all legal purposes, the damn system still remains constitutionally correct, so, it will be very difficult for any person to use constitutionality as a defense, especially when a lower court cannot make any rulings on the constitution, which by the way still is in favor of e-Tolls in any event.
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Not at all - the final word on many subjects concerning e-tolling has been set by the SCA and the route is collateral challenge. SANRAL know - they have a multitude of legal and academic opinions - that the criminal offence clauses in our law simply do not envisage a situation where a motorist is able to drive on the road and magically have a liability imposed which results in a criminal offence for not entering into business with a company, and that e-tolling will not survive a collateral challenge.

A lower court that proceeds to consider a charge will be acting far outside of its bounds as a creature of statute.

The question the Constitutional Court has been framing itself to has been whether the courts can override the executive (particularly treasury) on policy, not whether the courts should be the instrument that gives effect to policy. Anyway if there was any confidence in the approach you are claiming to be the law the NPA would use junior district court prosecutors.
 
The_Librarian said:
Probably because of this

And I predict another daft law will be sneaked in soon!
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The problem is that they cannot make the law retrospective and more importantly this very issue has run into some major headwind in the NCOP and the manner of changes which are needed to introduce national open road tolling with a criminal offence aspect is one that requires going through the provinces.

The entire thinking that underlies e-tolling is misconceived and you have a horrid house of cards waiting to fall in on itself.
 
Paul Hjul said:
The entire thinking that underlies e-tolling is misconceived and you have a horrid house of cards waiting to fall in on itself.
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Good to hear. The deeper they dig the hole for themselves, the better.

Unfortunately it means that they prolong the bail-out period. I am NOT willing to bail them out.

On routes like the N1, N4 West, and the N3, tolling do make sense, especially on the N4 and N1 as other countries' trucks make use of the national highways, and they can jolly well contribute to the road.

GFIP does not make sense as it only target a set of specified individuals (Gauteng residents) and only succeed in driving up the basic cost of living. Foreign transport does not contribute to the road fund at all.
 
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The_Librarian said:
Good to hear. The deeper they dig the hole for themselves, the better.

Unfortunately it means that they prolong the bail-out period. I am NOT willing to bail them out.

On routes like the N1, N4 West, and the N3, tolling do make sense, especially on the N4 and N1 as other countries' trucks make use of the national highways, and they can jolly well contribute to the road.

GFIP does not make sense as it only target a set of specified individuals (Gauteng residents) and only succeed in driving up the basic cost of living. Foreign transport does not contribute to the road fund at all.
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Yes, its not new road, with the old alternatives left to use for free. It is being enforced on existing roads that have already caused spatial development to occur in a specific way because they were free
 
The_Librarian said:
Good to hear. The deeper they dig the hole for themselves, the better.

Unfortunately it means that they prolong the bail-out period. I am NOT willing to bail them out.
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well this is the biggest area of the plan being horribly misconceived and it truly is the area of this entire ****up that needs to be looked at the most carefully

BUT paying your e-tolls as sought or giving any money over to ETC or any affiliated body is not the way to deal with the bailout problem that is going to arise. My general view - and I haven't run the numbers (nor have the skills to run the numbers in the way DJ did) is that three components are going to be required to get SA out of the mess created by e-tolls: [1] the entire project needs to be placed in a form of receivership with an active interrogation of the contracts involved and probable cancellations of many contracts in a transparent and legal manner - this receivership needs to essentially operate as an exchequer and needs to receive funds for [2] the long term scrapping of the Road Accident Fund and reintroduction of mandatory third party insurance; this is necessary not only because of e-tolling but also because of the absolute bankruptcy of the RAF, what needs to happen though is a 5 year re-introduction of mandatory insurance plan coupled with an 8 year new claims cut off (so in 2023 no new RAF claims as claims to the insurance companies) and (hopefully, but it could be longer, although the amount should decline) 15 year continuation of the RAF component of the fuel levy to the the receivership (who systematically absorbs responsibility for RAF liabilities) - what this will mean is that instead of paying SANRAL etolls you end up having to get insurance; and [3] revisiting the surface transport legislation to get a situation where private capital funding and block tolling on new roads occurs in a market orientated manner.

However the solution involves an admission of epic cockup by the South African government and the relinquishing of certain power.
 
Paul Hjul said:
However the solution involves an admission of epic cockup by the South African government and the relinquishing of certain power.
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Which they never will do.

Should be interesting to see what will happen next. Hopefully it'll make overseas tolling companies think twice before investing...
 
FireTelkom said:
1 I may seem unfair to you but for every section you mentioned you will see a gantry for the traffic in the opposite direction. So on the way south from Brakfontein to Samrand you do not pass under a gantry but when going in the opposite direction you will. The premise for the location of the gantries was with the assumption that more than 99% of all people will use both sections of the same portion of freeways and the number of times going south and north will balance out, hence the decision to reduce the cost of collection by halving the number of gantries that were built and have to be maintained.

User payments for road infrastructure is very often not supported by the public initially as you can see from debates in the UK with congestion charging for London that recently went up from GBP10 to GBP13 per day, the restrictions in Jakarta where only multi-occupancy vehicles with more than 3 people inside are allowed to proceed on many freeways or the system in Singapore where you're right to own a vehicle will cost more than R1.5million every 5 years. (Just as a matter of interest if you enter the congestion charge zone in London you must pay on the same day as the charge is increased to about GBP 100 if you pay the next week!)

2. Countries that experimented with alternative funding models like dedicated transport fuel levies (which we do not have) and vehicle license fees (ours are exceptionally low compared to the developing world and developed world) are finding ever increasing gaps in money recovered because of the actions of consumers. The Netherlands is an excellent example where the price of Petrol is now R27 per litre (Euro 1.835) and the road tax (license fee) for a typical Audi A4 2.0 Petrol is more or less R1550 per month! If you choose a diesel vehicle in Holland the price for diesel is R22 per litre but you're monthly road tax for a Audi A4 2.0 Tdi will be about R2850 per month.

The Dutch are now the country in Europe buying the biggest number of Hybrid cars and electric cars due to the fact that the road taxes will be nearly R650 per month for the BMW i3 and you can reduce you're petrol usage a lot. This however created a situation where the price of fuel is increasing every year much more than the neighbouring countries and as such the Dutch are even considering introducing user pay principles. They are looking at two options and the first is E-Gantries and the second is to fit every vehicle with an electronic device where you will pay for every travelled on even the road in front of you're house.

3. The question of public transport comes up very often and yet we are a country where more than 70% of the population is totally dependant on public transport. The current investments in Public transport is also assisting the increase that figure even more. Just think if all the people using the Gautrain were also one-one in a car like 90% of all vehicles on the N1 - it would have been gridlock for at least 3 hours per day per direction. As the public transport is subsidised we must remember that the majority of roads are also still totally subsidised and the Gauteng E-Freeways partially.

4. Perhaps I am looking at this from a transport planning and management perspective and not just from an emotional "not in my backyard" perspective. We must create the believe that it is the individuals choosing to use the E-roads and not forced on any-one. It will most probably also change our buying decision on where we stay and where we work. Perhaps the future of the Sleep Cities like Centurion, Soweto, Alberton and even Heidelberg where the people sleep in those cities and commute long distances at high cost is the real problem in our country. We are the country and Gauteng the area in the country with the longest commuting distances in the world.
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1. It is unfair, why must someone who gets off the N1 North at Olifantsfontein have to pay, while someone who gets off N1 North at New Road doesn't? They both pay to go South. Just plain not fair. They could also have rejected the tenders and and retender for a more affordable system or developed a much cheaper system, didn't have to cost R8 billion (that's what I recall it was) for the system itself.

2. Was the public sufficiently consulted in the first place? The current fuel levy is enough to build new roads and maintain the roads at R45 billion a year, no need to increase it a lot and most South Africans cannot afford such vehicles, most cant event afford a R130 000 Ford Figo or Polo Vivo and hybrids and electric are way more expensive.

3. How long will it take to get a Gautrain station on the eastern side of the N1? Probably 4 to 5 years. What must I do till then to get to Sandton? No, I cant move closer and it takes 45 minutes just to go to Hatfield Gautrain station with my car, I'd have to pass under a gantry on that quickest route. If I wanted to use the Gautrain bus, I'd have to walk 30 minutes to the nearest bus stop, take a hour bus ride to the station, and then the quick train of 30 mins and then 15 minutes bus ride, and then they have frequent strikes with the busses. In 45 minutes I am already in Midrand having left the N14 onto the N1 in my car. Basic point is, public transport to the middle class areas are lacking. I see no plans to improve public transport between PTA east and anywhere in the short term.

4. Thanks for pointing out another unfairness. We are forced to use these roads since they are the old roads upgraded and the spatial development because of their existence have occurred a decade or 2 and even longer ago. If they had left the old roads as is and built new ones (these upgrades cost the same as new ones) then they could have tolled the hell out of the new ones, with no issue from me.
 
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