Tolls and e tag

G

gary176

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Hi all,

I am new to SA and have a car since Jan this year. When I transferred the car in my name, I was told that all toll notices will come to my new registered address.

But so far nothing has come and I am a bit worried of paying big penalty and charges.

I have two questions:

1) where can I check my outstanding notices given that I have used toll roads but since now I haven’t received a single one. Usually in most countries you can find it online and pay!!
2) how do I get an electronic tag

Any help will be much appreciated. Thanks
 
Forget about the E-tags and etolls, You dont need any of that, no one in SA pays for that. Only pay at normal tolls where there is a cashier sitting in the booth.
 
epah said:
Forget about the E-tags and etolls, You dont need any of that, no one in SA pays for that. Only pay at normal tolls where there is a cashier sitting in the booth.
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The tags were useful for zooming through quick on the normal toll gates e-toll only lane when I was using rental cars, no queues. Now most have normal toll gates I encounter have a tap-and-go lane for cards too, which is almost as quick.
 
supersunbird said:
The tags were useful for zooming through quick on the normal toll gates e-toll only lane when I was using rental cars, no queues. Now most have normal toll gates I encounter have a tap-and-go lane for cards too, which is almost as quick.
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First thing I do when I get a rental with an etag is remove it - the surcharges for using it are ridiculous.
 
gary176 said:
I was told that all toll notices will come to my new registered address.
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The Post Office has stopped functioning so your chances of getting mail are very slim. The etoll system has also stopped functioning and it is no longer possible to register online and get your balance.

Best is to do what everybody does - ignore etolls and stop worrying about it. Should you by accident get an account, throw it away.
 
Thanks everyone!! Hopefully I won’t be slapped with a massive bill later on…. Fingers crossed
 
Stonemason said:
The Post Office has stopped functioning so your chances of getting mail are very slim. The etoll system has also stopped functioning and it is no longer possible to register online and get your balance.

Best is to do what everybody does - ignore etolls and stop worrying about it. Should you by accident get an account, throw it away.
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Not entirely true, got a etoll invoice in the post for the wife last week, for a car she has never owned. So scamral and the postoffice are semi operational, even though they are totally clueless and their systems are a cock up.
 
gary176 said:
Thanks everyone!! Hopefully I won’t be slapped with a massive bill later on…. Fingers crossed
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The tolls were introduced in 2013. I have used the roads almost every day since then. Have yet to receive any "fines"

Chances are the tolls will eventually (announcement soon, promise) will be scrapped, anyway.

PS, what brings you to SA?
 
Last time I actually received an etoll account, it was around R20k... but that was over a year ago, received nothing since thanks to our wonderful postal service.

But don't worry about it, almost no one pays their etoll in SA.
 
Bismuth said:
Last time I actually received an etoll account, it was around R20k... but that was over a year ago, received nothing since thanks to our wonderful postal service.

But don't worry about it, almost no one pays their etoll in SA.
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20k?
 
gary176 said:
Thanks everyone!! Hopefully I won’t be slapped with a massive bill later on…. Fingers crossed
Click to expand...
Gary, I recommend that you visit an eToll booth in your nearest large mall. They still have a decent physical network in the major hubs. They'll register you on the spot, give you an eTag, and even help load your first credit for you if you'd like. Once you've done that, just download the SANRAL app to your phone (SANRAL is the national roads agency which administers the eTolling system). Or if you'd prefer you can visit the eToll portal on SANRAL's website.

I've had an eTag in all my cars since the system came out, and my current balance is a princely R1.20 in the positive lol. I drive so little on the highways, and each journey costs mere cents (and is also capped at a very low maximum for the month - around the R220/month threshold if I remember right, but generally I pay like R100 once every two months).

My recommendation is get an eTag. Pay it. It's the law, despite what the cowboys on here with unpaid eToll bills well over R 10 000 will tell you. You'll pay practically nothing, you'll never have to worry about the government actually enforcing it, and even if the entire system IS one day cancelled (which they've been threatening for 8 years at least but never carried through), at least you paid for your usage of the roads.

I don't know when it became trendy in South Africa to moan bitterly about criminals stealing your TV, or someone attacking your wife, but apparently middle-class law-abiding people are all moral crusaders by ducking their bills like the SABC TV licence and eTolling. They'd duck VAT and PAYE and the petrol levy too if they could, but please see it for what it is: just people refusing to pay their societal dues, while still feeling entitled to moan about the state of the roads anywhere that eTolling is NOT actually a thing.

Welcome to South Africa. There are two sides to every story, and the right side is usually the minority viewpoint so you have to search it out ;)
 
Foxhound5366 said:
Gary, I recommend that you visit an eToll booth in your nearest large mall. They still have a decent physical network in the major hubs. They'll register you on the spot, give you an eTag, and even help load your first credit for you if you'd like. Once you've done that, just download the SANRAL app to your phone (SANRAL is the national roads agency which administers the eTolling system). Or if you'd prefer you can visit the eToll portal on SANRAL's website.

I've had an eTag in all my cars since the system came out, and my current balance is a princely R1.20 in the positive lol. I drive so little on the highways, and each journey costs mere cents (and is also capped at a very low maximum for the month - around the R220/month threshold if I remember right, but generally I pay like R100 once every two months).

My recommendation is get an eTag. Pay it. It's the law, despite what the cowboys on here with unpaid eToll bills well over R 10 000 will tell you. You'll pay practically nothing, you'll never have to worry about the government actually enforcing it, and even if the entire system IS one day cancelled (which they've been threatening for 8 years at least but never carried through), at least you paid for your usage of the roads.

I don't know when it became trendy in South Africa to moan bitterly about criminals stealing your TV, or someone attacking your wife, but apparently middle-class law-abiding people are all moral crusaders by ducking their bills like the SABC TV licence and eTolling. They'd duck VAT and PAYE and the petrol levy too if they could, but please see it for what it is: just people refusing to pay their societal dues, while still feeling entitled to moan about the state of the roads anywhere that eTolling is NOT actually a thing.

Welcome to South Africa. There are two sides to every story, and the right side is usually the minority viewpoint so you have to search it out ;)
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It's a wholly unjust system* not nearly the same level as Apartheid, but still it should be resisted and fought.

*There are parts where you can drive 8km and be charged nothing, no record of your trip at all, while other places you get on at one onramp and off at the next and have to pay full gantry price.
 
supersunbird said:
It's a wholly unjust system, not nearly the same level as Apartheid, but still it should be resisted and fought.
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Makes you wonder if people got to save money from fighting Apartheid whether more whites would have done it. I find it a little convenient that the social justice warriors just coincidentally happen to be benefitting financially from their breaking of the law ... sorry *coughs* ... overthrowing the unjust system. I guess that's just the icing on the cake for them, not the whole reason, right? Right? Anyone? I mean they all take part in other social justice initiatives where they don't get any money back, right? No? Ok then.
 
Foxhound5366 said:
Makes you wonder if people got to save money from fighting Apartheid whether more whites would have done it. I find it a little convenient that the social justice warriors just coincidentally happen to be benefitting financially from their breaking of the law ... sorry *coughs* ... overthrowing the unjust system. I guess that's just the icing on the cake for them, not the whole reason, right? Right? Anyone? I mean they all take part in other social justice initiatives where they don't get any money back, right? No? Ok then.
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It's an unjust tax. I have numerous times demonstrated they could have paid for the whole system (and that's with the inflated price due to e-toll stuff) with just half the years fuel levy in 2014.

Spacial development has taken place already, they trying to tax people on existing routes. New road on new routes, no such problem. No problem paying N1 Limpopo tolls. Was a new road and decently maintained. I can use the R101 if I don't like paying.
 
supersunbird said:
It's an unjust tax. I have numerous times demonstrated they could have paid for the whole system (and that's with the inflated price due to e-toll stuff) with just half the years fuel levy in 2014.

Spacial development has taken place already, they trying to tax people on existing routes. New road on new routes, no such problem. No problem paying N1 Limpopo tolls. Was a new road and decently maintained. I can use the R101 if I don't like paying.
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Imagine a system of government where your personal opinion had to be sought every single time government wanted to implement a system of taxation, failing which it could be deemed nationally unjust and ignored. Yeah, that system of government doesn't exist yet, but good luck running for president one day!

The bottom line is that if we as South Africans feel that lawlessness and criminality is undermining the fabric of our society, we should be VERY careful about eroding our own positions of moral authority by undermining legally-mandated systems put in place by the democratically-elected government. To see a foreigner create a thread like this one and innocently ask about a new tolling system that he has observed, and to be so loudly told to just break the law ... you think you'd find that in the UK or Europe? Nope, only in Africa. And yes, because of Africans. YOU.

Go the whole strawman route of equating eTolling to Apartheid or the Holocaust, we're not even gonna go down that road of hysteria. If you are genuinely donating the money you save from eTolling and investing it into some in other charity, maybe you've got a little moral authority left ... but if it's purely a case of ducking the only taxes you can because you can, that's a different story and we should just call a spade a spade rather. Let's not confuse foreigners who are new to South Africa into thinking we've completely lost our moral compass. We're just struggling for money and would rather pay for Disney+ than eTolling. #priorities
 
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