Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula says it is too late now to fight the controversial Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) bill.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed the bill into law and it will come into effect when it appears in the Government Gazette.
The date of implementation will soon be announced.
“Upon rolling it out, we will be able to adequately deal with lawlessness on our roads. We are burying far too many people as a result of crashes,” said Mbalula.
“In 2018 alone 12,000 people lost their lives. Each death represented an average of R4.6-million to the economy. We can no longer continue in this trajectory.”
But civil society and the transport industry are said to have vowed to challenge the bill’s implementation at every level.
Some critics have suggested the law is aimed at collecting revenue in e-toll fines and penalties.
But Mbalula says this isn’t true.
A demerit system will be used and drivers risk losing their licences for repeated offences.
Every infringement will accumulate demerit points, with a total of 12 resulting in the suspension of a license for a period of months.
Once the suspension period lapses, drivers can apply to get their licences back.
On the third suspension, the licence will be revoked. The driver will be required to retake learner’s and driver’s tests after the suspension lapses.
