The Durban metro police are owed a staggering R1.7 billion in outstanding fines, with the municipality now pinning its hopes on roadblocks and number plate recognition technology to catch offenders.
Metro police spokesman, Senior Superintendent Eugene Msomi, has confirmed there are 4.4 million outstanding fines stretching back to 2005.
This represents an increase of about 900 000 from June 2012 when the Daily News reported that 3.5 million had not been paid.
At the time the municipality said it would put out reminders on electricity and water bills and send out mass SMSes to get people to pay.
Now in an effort to recoup the outstanding fines, metro police will conduct citywide roadblocks to ensnare defaulters.
In addition, Msomi said they were awaiting finalisation of a tender for the appointment of a service provider for electronic equipment and enforcement, including office staff focusing on collection of outstanding fines.
The tender was with the city’s bid committees for evaluation.
He said the company would provide metro police with specialised software that would be able to read motorists’ number plates and determine whether they had any outstanding fines.
“It is about creating efficiency. We do not want to pull everybody over and check. With this specialised equipment, it will enable us to identify a vehicle with outstanding fines very easily.”
Last year, metro police were able to recover more than R29m in unpaid fines through roadblocks where warrants of arrests were issued on the spot to motorists, Msomi said.
“MAKE ARRANGEMENTS, PLEASE”
“Our advice to people is to come and pay the fines. If they cannot afford it, they can come and make arrangements to pay because if we catch them at a roadblock, more often than not, they scramble to get the money,” he said.
“Nobody wants to spend a weekend in the cells because they did not have money for their fines.”
Msomi said they encouraged motorists with an incentive of a 50 percent reduction of their fine if they paid it within 30 days.
“We have always undertaken initiatives to collect outstanding fines. Incentive campaigns in 2008 and 2010 yielded R100m and R78m within each six-month period when those incentives ran. The current incentive programme was implemented in 2012, however the response is not as anticipated. The department will have to rethink the incentive.”
Last year, metro police issued 736 832 fines that included 233 272 for moving offences such as speeding and disregarding a red traffic light, 284 049 parking offences, 96 879 for motorists who could not provide documentation such as driving licences and permits, and 50 792 for law offences.
Msomi said the worst offenders were mainly from the corporate sector followed by the taxi industry and the freight transport industry.
He said that the execution of warrants of arrests was an on-going exercise.
NUMEROUS CHALLENGES
“We do have numerous challenges at courts in this regard, especially the volumes the courts are able to process daily.
“The new tender will provide additional technology in this regard especially the roving automatic number recognition systems fitted on vehicles.”
DA spokesman for community safety in KwaZulu-Natal, Dr Rishigen Viranna, said it was unacceptable that the outstanding amount in fines had been allowed to accumulate to such an extent.
“These fines have been accumulating for 10 years, since 2005. I don’t know much about this tender but why is it only being finalised now? There need to be repercussions for those who do not comply with the city’s bylaws,” he said.
Viranna said the by-laws in place were sufficient, but were not enforced strictly enough.
“Motorists do not take traffic violations seriously because they know that there is no follow-up,” he said.
“Some of these fines are notched up by repeat offenders, who now drive around with impunity.”
He said enforcing fines was important for community safety because traffic violations sometimes led to “loss of lives and carnage” on the province’s roads.
A CLEAR LINK
Road Safety Action Campaign founder, Richard Benson, whose organisation has been campaigning for a nationwide decrease in the speed limit, agreed there was a clear link between traffic law violations and accidents.
“Traffic fines are not paid or collected because motorists cannot see evidence of the money being put to work.
“The money should be invested in traffic policing and staffing… There will be a huge psychological effect on motorists.”
He said that there were more than 10 million vehicles registered in South Africa and only about 17 000 traffic officers.
“If the laws are changed, more money needs to be pumped into training the people who enforce them.”
Changing speed limits would also help bring down the shocking number of road fatalities.
“By dropping the speed limit to 100km/h on the open road, we can reduce road carnage, as has been seen in other countries, including deaths and injury, by up to 80 percent,” he said.
Daily News