TV for Traffic Fines

Skepticism General Skepticism
1

Got this in my email this morning. Any truth to this?

Police Take TV for Unknown Traffic Fines

I got a shocking email last week from Daniel of Jo’burg. He was sitting at home watching TV when there was a knock at the door. The police barged in and took his television (as well as his drivers licence and his vehicle licence disk) and clamped his car as well. He was handed a notice of a speeding fine which was over a year old. The most shocking thing is: Daniel had never received any notice of any fines in the mail, by email or by SMS.

How Could This Have Happened?

Under the new laws, fines need only be sent to the address on file. Receipt from you is not required for the notice to be legal. Since Daniel hadn’t updated his eNATIS details, all his traffic fine notices went to an old address so he never received them. If you don’t respond to a fine, it’s perfectly legal for them to come into your home and seize any of your “movable property” including your TV. Even if you know nothing about the fines!

What was the fine that caused all this for Daniel?

A R400 speeding fine which ended up being over R2000 with all the added fees!

Don’t Let This Happen to You

You may very well have outstanding fines that you don’t know about. The only way to be sure is to check your driver’s record and then deal with any fines you discover. I couldn’t help Daniel - it had gone too far. I can help you … with my TrafficFinesToolkit.

With your copy of my Traffic Fines Toolkit, you will learn…

  1. how to uncover unknown traffic fines;
  2. how to have any traffic fine reduced or cancelled entirely;
  3. how to find out if you qualify for traffic fines refunds;
  4. how to reduce problems at roadblocks.
2

Hrm, AFAIK any discreprency on a traffic fine, including incorrect address, makes it null and void. YES it’s your responsibility to update your address. BUT, a friend of mine did, multiple times, and eNatis still clung to the incorrect address. He kept all documentation to show he did attempt to update the address, and since all his fines have been voided (he actively monitors it).

But this email has the sign of a half-truth in it. “PANIC! WORRY! ACT NOW! but don’t worry, I sell this helpful product that can help you…”

3

Just the feel of the mail is one of propoganda and hysterics. I would’nt worry about it. For some reason people get their knickers in a knot over this type of thing, my cubicle neighbour was telling me this morning about someone who knows someone who knows someone that was fined R500 for not having a red triangle in their car in case of a breakdown. She’s rushing out to go equip her car with one this afternoon.

eNatis is a fark up in any case, the b/f had to go register my new car at our local authorities two weeks ago and they wouldnt accept our proof of adress because its on my name and not his. So I did the legal thing, went to the cop shop, completed an affidavid proclaiming him to be a permanent resident at given address, provided FICA documents. They still wouldnt accept it, end of story, he had to schlep to Roodepoort and have the thing registered there under his mother’s address (he left home more than 10 years ago). All this because the other vehicles are registered there (we tried to change the address for these as well and eventually gave up in disgust)

Country’s going to hell in a handbasket… wait, think we’re already arrived, the basket is now smouldering at the seams and the bottoms already on fire.

4

boogie, avatar is effing briliiant mate.

on the point of these hysterics regarding fines.
i did my research, and i actually went in read the road traffic act.

it says, that they can only arrest you, if they have a warrant for your arrest. they can only have a warrant for you arrest, if they have proof that they served you with a notice to appear in court, and you signed it. and they have the original or a copy of it with them. so that means, they cant arrest you at a roadblock for outstanding fines, unless they a copy of a signed notice on hand to show you have ignored the summons.
on the thing of rocking up at your house and taking your shit. bollocks.
for anyone to take anything from your house, they need a court order first. that goes for furniture places and your landlord too. nobody is allowed to touch your property without a court order, if they do, its theft, and you can open a docket at your local cop-shop against them.
allso, the police wearing the blue uniforms, are not allowed to have roadblocks, and demand money for outstanding fines. or give fines. they dont even have books to write fines in at all. they are just hoping for a bribe. only metro and traffic cops can give you fines, and arrest you for outstanding fines.

so tell 'em that. and tell 'em to get farked.

5

That’s essentially correct, except to note some peculiarities about the rules governing the serving of legal notices. If the notice was served at an address that you no longer occupy but that is your address on record, the law then deems it to have been delivered to you even if it was signed for by someone at that address wholly unknown by you. That is, for example, if a notice is delivered to your old address from which you have moved but not submitted a change of address to the relevant authorities and the present occupants’ domestic servant signs for it, you will be in trouble even if you know nothing about it whatsoever. The law assumes that you are living up to your duty of keeping your details current.

'Luthon64

6

Taking stuff from your home to cover a legal matter has procedures too. The first thing is the sheriff of the court arrives to take stock of what you have and give you a proper notice that the court intends to take goods to a certain value to cover a certain legal verdict against you. There’s a long and legal procedure for this.

Also - outstanding fines are simply added to your licence fee (at least in Pretoria it’s like this) so you pay them anyway once a year. The story is obviously a lie and I personally wouldn’t buy anything from people who are lying to me.

7

I received this same spam a few months ago. It turns out these okes are in New Zealand, and send out the same stuff to folk all over the globe with a couple of localizations thrown in. Don’t waste your bread.

8

I did some research as well. I found Joe Lazarus is an retired traffic from Durban, and has the kiwi (the guy from New Zealand) help him with his business. As far as I could discover, there are similar products in other areas, but these blokes don’t send it our anywhere else. I could be mistaken, but I don’t think it really matters.

I can’t say I agree with the fear tactics, but we all know he’s right in what was said. Since when have the MPD ever wanted us to know the truth?

Consider one other thing as well. They supposedly enacted AARTO with the goal of getting people to start paying infringements because they were “losing” millions in fine money. They are trying to end corruption (good luck with that!) and make the laws “fair”.

I have to admit, I used to ignore the occasional infringement notice I would get in the mail. I don’t think any of us should any more. unfortunately, I know personally that it can end poorly, after having my wages garnished over a 2 year old fine. The buggers are robbing me now, what was a R500 fine is costing me over R1800 because I “ignored the law” as the magistrate said.

A last note about that “traffic fines toolkit.” They are selling information, and seem to be honest in what they’re saying. Getting the whole truth from the SA government is almost impossible. I say let them be unless they are hurting anyone. I wish I had known they were farkin’ serious!

Here are some links you should read if you are wanting the truth.

http://www.joburg.org.za/content/view/3527/266/ (Says they are giving out fine refunds)
https://www.ethekwini.co.za/durban/services/services_news/public-urged-to-ignore-2018hoax2019-traffic-fines-e-mail-1/view (says they aren’t refunding any fines)
http://aarto.co.za.dedi35.jnb2.host-h.net/public/warrant-of-execution.html (says they can take your property

After reading all this, I think Joe has the best answer. We should ALL learn the laws so we can beat them at their own game.

9

Well, I’ve always believed that ignoring fines, summonses and court orders is the cleverest course of action.

Yup! You seem like a really intelligent person. Might you be interested in a little real estate investment I have going at the moment? Rwenzori Moonplots has some stunning deals on the go, with guaranteed returns too.

10

Nice Astroturfing!

11

First off that spam didn’t make sense. They posted his fine to an old address, but were able to find his tv at his new address? Why didnt they post the fine to that address?

Anyway I have learnt a few things about traffic fines, because I work in construction, so essentially I’m a modern day nomad.

I never stay in one town, let alone a province for longer than 8-12 months. One thing I have learned is that one province doesn’t talk to another province (actually one municipality doesn’t talk to another municipality, even if they are in the same district, eg. Ekurhuleni and JMPD) about outstanding fines.

I have incurred fines in the Eastern Cape (Stutterheim 3.5 years outstanding and Queenstown 3.5 years outstanding), Free State (Bloemfontein - 3 years outstanding), Gauteng (JMPD - 2 years outstanding) and Limpopo (Bela Bela 1 year outstanding). Now about a year ago I was stopped at a road block in Ekurhuleni, where they did a check on my lisence to see if I had outstanding fines. They came back and said 0 fines outstanding. This proved to me that the different municipalities are unable to see what fines you have outstanding in other districts, only there own district.

Now since I change my adrress every 8-12 months, it becomes a pain to go stand in line at a traffic office and change my address everytime. So my car is registered at my parents home in Queenstown, Eastern cape. My mom renews my vehicle registration (a standard fee is paid, no fine amount is lumped in) every year and posts the disc to where ever I am.

They have never recieved a summons for me on anyone of the fines I have recieved. They only recieve notices by mail of camera fines. Interestingly the fine amount never changes, even after 2 years and they keep changing the due date. After 2 years the fines seem to dissapear as the notices stop arriving.

I’m not sure if this is true, but i heard that after 2 years of recieving the fine and they ahven’t been able to recieve any payment for the fine. The fine goes into stagnation and they no longer pursue it.

This seems to be the case as I was fined in Ekuruhleni 4 years ago. When I was pulled over at a road block in Ekuruhleni, this fine did not appear on the system.

Any thoughts on my experiences?

12

i know in ekhurhuleni at some point last year, they scrapped all the fines before a certain point, and then there were issues with some of the camera fines too, so a bunch of them were scrapped too, so that might be what happened to them.

13

AFAIK, there is indeed a two-year rule regarding summonses for unpaid fines. If a summons/warrant is issued against an unpaid fine but the summons/warrant remains, for whatever reason, unserved or unanswered for two years, it then lapses, and the whole cause of action falls off the register. This would mean that if you’ve dodged paying a fine for two years (plus a little), you needn’t worry about it coming back to haunt you anymore.

'Luthon64

14

as much as i would enjoy dodge’ems with the local metro, i would hate to get pulled over in stokkiesville in die middle of the night and get arrested. much fun.