Don't pay for reporting accident late

Image: Doctor Ngcobo.

Image: Doctor Ngcobo.

Published Oct 21, 2011

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Drivers who report accidents late may not be ordered to pay a fine before an accident report is opened.

That’s the word from the Joburg Metro Police Department after it emerged that motorists who reported an accident late were being told to pay a fine of R1000 cash or face not being permitted to open an accident report.

The JMPD denied that they had issued instructions to Joburg SAPS stations to that effect. “Absolutely not,” said the JMPD’s director, Gerrie Gerneke.

The problems apparently arose from a misunderstanding between the SAPS and JMPD over the fines.

In terms of the Road Traffic Act, traffic accidents must be reported to the SAPS within 24 hours of an incident.

The SAPS investigates only the accidents involving deaths or injuries, and the others are simply collected and passed on to the JMPD for processing.

A senior SAPS officer told The Star the officers at his police station had been ordered by the JMPD to fine the motorists before opening an accident report.

When the SAPS at that station sent late accident reports through to the JMPD without the fine receipt attached, the reports were returned to the police station without being processed, he said.

The officer said the SAPS was simply following the JMPD’s instructions, and provided The Star with a copy of a list of fines provided to his station by the JMPD. This list includes a fine of R1000 for breach of regulation 118(1)(f), the requirement to report an accident within 24 hours.

But Gerneke dismissed this as a misunderstanding.

Motorists involved in an accident, and who do not report it within 24 hours are indeed running foul of the law, he said.

However, the JMPD did not prosecute such matters as there were often valid reasons for the delays. “I’m not aware of a single case where we have prosecuted someone for not reporting an accident,” said Gerneke.

He said drivers may have been injured or confused after the accident.

Accidents may also have been reported to a different police station.

Gerneke said it was legal to prosecute such a matter and the JMPD had previously told police officers who enquired about prosecuting such cases what the fine was. However, the JMPD did not urge prosecutions, and certainly did not tell them to take the fine before opening an accident report.

“We have never refused a case number,” said Gerneke. “I cannot hold you to ransom.”

He confirmed the list of fines but insisted this was not issued to the SAPS as an instruction.

“How are we going to give someone an instruction to do it if we don't do it ourselves?” he asked.

He said any accident reports returned to the police could have been returned because they were defective. Gerneke said he had received two complaints this week about police wanting the R1 000 to be paid in cash as they did not have the card facilities to access the money.

One man went to several police stations and they all wanted R1000 upfront. All of them told him it was a directive from the JMPD. -The Star

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