It’s important to realise just how heavily Sanral and the govvermint have stacked the deck against Joe and Jane Public. There is a piece of legislation specifically for e-tolling. It overrides other relevant statutes, laws and legal principles. For example, the aforementioned no-opt-out clause goes directly against what lies at the heart of contract law. Similarly, if you receive an e-toll bill and wish to dispute it, the onus of proof is on you that the bill is erroneous, despite the fact that Sanral could easily prove their claim (at least in principle — apparently their systems will keep detailed records, including time-stamped video footage, of vehicles passing individual gantries). Also, the presumption is always that the registered owner is the driver, and let’s not forget here that as many as 40% of the number plates on the road are cloned. Moreover, e-tolling itself and the e-toll debt collection procedures are not subject to the provisions of the National Credit Act of 2007.
And this is just one of several dimensions of e-tolling’s insidiousness.
Well, it was entirely predictable that certain opportunistic populists and other politicians with a penchant for demagoguery would seize upon the issue for the political currency that could be milked from it. I think the fear of even worse should not deter efforts to oppose what is clearly bad enough already because if it does, you can be sure that even worse will eventually arrive, one way or another. “All that is needed for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing.”
Sounds like they may end up running afoul of the constitution. If memory serves the issue has already been in the constitutional court, but I don’t think all the issues you bring up here were thrashed out in that particular case.
Anyway, with or without constitutional legitimacy, with sufficient non-compliance, the whole thing will collapse. I don’t think one necessarily even needs many thousands of non-compliants (is that a word?). Imagine even two or three thousand drivers use the road and then flatly refuse to pay. Are they really going to arrest all three thousand? What if some of those drivers include prominent businessmen, clergy, etc.?
Perhaps now is the time to request Desmond Tutu to go take a drive on the toll road and then refuse to pay…
Scrap the alternative route. I went today from Sandton back to Middelburg and set the GPS to avoid “motorways”. Went for a trip trough Alaxandria and then the R25 past Babsfontein. It added 90 minutes to my trip, but that was maybe on account of the many traffic lights that were out of order. Wonder if that was done on purpose? It was a good 30 to 40% that was out.
Yes, you are entirely correct that not all e-tolling’s legal ins and outs have yet been properly tested in the courts. In fact, the High Court said as much during OUTA’s last challenge, leaving considerable scope for further legal challenges. That’s why there’s so much interest by various parties in getting a test case ASAP, the ultimate aim being to settle looming questions about the e-tolling legislation’s constitutionality. The Constitutional Court ruling against OUTA was limited to OUTA’s application that e-tolling is unconstitutional in principle (which it isn’t due to the state’s mandate from the people). However, since it was not part of the application, the Constitutional Court made no rulings or pronouncements about how the system was implemented. The downside is that all of this will take quite a long time to sort out. Probably, the next legal step will be Justice Project SA’s application to the High Court to compel Sanral/Dept of Transport to provide clear and comprehensive details re the toll and debt collection procedures.
On a more positive note, it currently seems that the number of non-compliant motorists will wildly exceed the 3,000 mark you suggest. It may even hit hundreds of thousands.
Yup. I would like to see them arrest 100k’s, perhaps millions, of motorists and detain them for 6 months. Gauteng will suffer an economic collapse.
Scrap the alternative route.
Yeah, Joburg’s been a bit of a mess since those storms came. I dunno how many of you live on/near “ground zero” here but it’s been a mess, heavy rains usually do a job on our robots and this time it did a proper job. Worse then when on Tuesday 1/2 the city decided to bypass the motorways, and the result was mind-blowing traffic jams. (Yes, it really takes that long to fix robots in this wonderful ANC-controlled municipality)
I had to deploy every weapon in my traffic-dodging arsenal this week to get home at a reasonable hour. Being a long-time resident and hating traffic to the level that I do, that arsenal is fairly well developed, unlike the clueless hoards who are now learning the hard way which routes not to attempt… which makes matters so much worse.
Had a talk with my brother, who is a lawyer. He points out another problem with the toll roads, namely that they defeat the whole point of progressive taxation. That is to say, normally, the richer you are, the more tax you pay and the more you can indeed afford to pay.
Not so with toll roads, where everyone is forced to pay the same to use the feeway, er, freeway. Many people who use the road for their daily commute already struggle to make ends meet; they will now suddenly face up to a R1000 extra per month just to get to work and back. They will surely non-comply in their thousands; they’ll have no other choice.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. It could happen in any family.
He points out another problem with the toll roads, namely that they defeat the whole point of progressive taxation.
True, and that also goes for VAT, fuel levies and capital gains tax! It's only PAYE that escalates with income AFAIK. Looks to me as if taxes are geared to screw the lower to middle income classes. Maybe because it offers a bigger tax base (more people).
SANRAL’s Kapsch OCR system is much less reliable than you think and that’s why they’re feverishly pushing e-tags and registration. It could be said that the OCR system doesn’t Kapschure perfectly. To adapt one politician’s recent slogan, “Don’t buy e-tag! Don’t buy!”
OUTA’s bias may be in the opposite direction to that of SANRAL/DoT, i.e. OUTA may be understating figures to discourage further e-tag purchases and registration, whereas SANRAL/DoT are probably overstating them to encourage others to follow suit. What’s needed is an independent survey. Still, I think OUTA’s statistics are closer to the truth, and if so, SANRAL/DoT are in hot water, leaving one to wonder what their next trick is going to be. They tried several sorts of enticements, heavy-handedness and threats, all of which seem to have failed.
Perhaps they’ll push for statutory amendments that make the annual road licence renewal contingent on a paid-up e-toll bill for the vehicle in question. Then the licence disc forgery business will start flourishing.
They tried that with the fines, (un?)fortunately Aarto is a stuff up and vehicle licencing is one of the most shoddily run government departments out there. If push comes to shove, the corruption will simply increase and the staff in said departments will have a steady additional income.
