{"id":644474,"date":"2026-04-30T12:01:52","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T10:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=644474"},"modified":"2026-04-30T12:02:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T10:02:40","slug":"south-africas-new-traffic-laws-with-driving-licence-penalty-points-ready-for-rollout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/motoring\/644474-south-africas-new-traffic-laws-with-driving-licence-penalty-points-ready-for-rollout.html","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s new traffic laws with driving licence penalty points ready for rollout"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Road Traffic Infringement Agency (RTIA) published its Annual Performance Plan for 2026\/7, outlining its goals for the year, which include a national rollout of South Africa’s new traffic laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the document, the agency confirmed the proclamation of the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (AARTO) Act was approved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It is ready for phased implementation as of 1 July 2026,” it said. The RTIA is responsible for managing AARTO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The board has approved a plan which seeks to continue to implement the AARTO Act nationally, through a phased approach.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The RTIA said it wanted to complete the AARTO system’s rollout at a national scale by the end of the current financial year’s third quarter, which is 31 December 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AARTO regulations have been in the works for more than two decades and their implementation has been delayed repeatedly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The RTIA previously planned to start rolling out the AARTO system to 69 municipalities that were ready for it on 1 December 2025. However, this was postponed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Department of Transport announced the postponement in a statement and said the decision was based on an assessment of the readiness of the implicated municipalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The assessment found that several aspects required for the rollout were lacking, including the finalisation of law enforcement and back office personnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The harmonisation of current law enforcement systems used by municipalities and the funding thereof was also found to be lacking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Department will soon publish the new proclamation with new staggered implementation dates, 1 July 2026 being the official implementation date,” the Department of Transport said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The previous phased rollout approach would have seen phase one of the system, which is already live in Johannesburg and Pretoria, roll out to 69 municipalities on 1 December 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plan was to roll out the system in the remaining 144 municipalities on 1 April 2026 and start enforcing phase two, which involved enforcing the demerit point system, on 1 September 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the rollout timeline remained the same, the full implementation of the AARTO system with the driving licence demerit points mechanism will only occur around mid-2027.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tender raises red flags<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In December 2025, the Department of Transport issued a tender<\/a> for a company to roll out and operate core AARTO services, raising concerns about the RTIA’s internal capacity to manage the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) demanded answers on why outsourcing these services is required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After having nearly 16 years to prepare, local transport authorities lack sufficient internal capacity to roll out and enforce AARTO without the private sector’s help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OUTA formally wrote to transport minister Barbara Creecy and to RTIA chair Bonolo Ramokgele, highlighting its concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also raised concerns that the tender invitation was set to close on 3 February 2026 but was hurriedly extended to 13 February 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outa questioned whether the late extension meaningfully mitigates the risks created by the original compressed timetable and warned that the process remained rushed for a procurement of this scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The civil action organisation cautioned that this approach could carry serious implications for competition, fairness, and transparency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Road Traffic Management Corporation, through the NATIS platform, already manages national traffic administration systems that interface directly with Aarto processes,” OUTA said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The organisation said that duplicating this capacity through private costs could result in higher costs, increased operational complexity, and weakened institutional capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The organisation also questions the appropriateness of introducing private commercial incentives into systems that support traffic infringement enforcement,” OUTA said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OUTA CEO Wayne Duvenage added that enabling private entities to benefit from administrative processes linked to fines created perverse incentives and risked eroding trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“That is exactly what Aarto does not need. Traffic enforcement is not meant to operate as a profit-driven exercise,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Road Traffic Infringement Agency has confirmed its plans to roll out new traffic laws nationally in South Africa in July 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":644489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29366],"tags":[19172,26078,100108,101137,35414,19174,18388,67298,10142],"class_list":["post-644474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-administrative-adjudication-of-road-traffic-offences-aarto","tag-barbara-creecy","tag-driving-licence-demerit-points","tag-driving-licence-penalty-points","tag-organisation-undoing-tax-abuse-outa","tag-road-traffic-infringement-agency-rtia","tag-traffic-fines","tag-traffic-laws","tag-wayne-duvenage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644474"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644474"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":644505,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644474\/revisions\/644505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}