E-toll data too flawed for court

Published Nov 25, 2014

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Johannesburg - Glaring flaws in the e-tolling system that could be costing Gauteng drivers millions of extra rand have been exposed during Duduzane Zuma’s culpable homicide inquest.

Zuma and minibus taxi driver Vusi Dlamini are the subjects of a hearing to determine if either was responsible for the death of Phumzile Dube.

The young mother was killed when Zuma crashed his silver Porsche 911 into the back of Dlamini’s taxi, sending the larger vehicle into the adjacent road barrier near the Grayston off-ramp in Sandton.

During the inquest, the court requested that data from the traffic cameras and nearby e-toll gantries be gathered to help calculate an average speed of both vehicles. However, at the Randburg Magistrate’s Court yesterday, while the Joburg metro police department failed to provide the traffic camera footage, the e-toll data was revealed to be incorrect.

While the accident occurred at 10pm on January 31, the e-toll data for Dlamini’s minibus claimed he was travelling under the Fiscal gantry on the N1 almost 20 minutes after the crash.

At 10.24pm, while he and Zuma were trying to recover from the shock of the collision, the Kingfisher gantry recorded Dlamini’s car travelling beneath it.

Five minutes later, the minibus that was stationary at the scene of the accident was, according to the e-toll data, travelling beneath the Owl gantry. And while accident investigators were nearing the scene at 11.09pm Dlamini’s vehicle was recorded under the Tarentaal gantry. At 12.24am, the vehicle was recorded travelling through the Blouvalk gantry on the M1.

GANTRIES CREATED ‘FICTIONAL’ TRIPS!

Shockingly, the e-toll cameras seemingly created further fictional trips under the Fiscal, Kingfisher and Tarentaal gantries seven hours later, when the vehicle was not on the road.

The data also implied that Zuma had taken more than an hour to get between the Blouvalk and Tarentaal gantries, claiming he was driving at 10.43pm, more than 40 minutes after the accident occurred.

Inquest evidence leader Yusuf Baba told the court the information flew in the face of what really happened that night, and was irreconcilable with the evidence.

Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance spokesman John Clarke told The Star the organisation was familiar with the large number of errors made by the e-toll system and its operating company, the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral).

He said this was evidence that the system was unusable to assist legal organisations in determining speed on the highways.

Clarke noted that other road users had complained about being charged for supposedly being on highways they had not used.

Howard Dembovsky, of the Justice Project South Africa, said the inquest had shown that the value of Sanral’s data as evidence was “practically zero”, and that would allow anyone taking the company to court over e-toll billing a grand opportunity.

“I imagine they’ll get a flood of queries from people saying they weren’t on a particular highway at a given time,” said Dembovsky.

“To my knowledge, the camera systems on gantries have not been type-approved for speed measurement. Now I’m certain,” he added.

“Any claims (Sanral) makes about speed measurements on the highway must be taken with, not a pinch, but a bag of salt.”

Sanral failed to respond at the time of publication.

NO EVIDENCE ZUMA WAS NEGLIGENT - DEFENCE

Was Duduzane Zuma driving recklessly on the night he collided with a minibus taxi? Or was it|an accident that could have happened to anybody?

Magistrate Lalita Chetty will have to answer these questions when she rules on December 11 whether Zuma will be prosecuted for culpable homicide.

The president’s son and minibus taxi driver Vusi Dlamini have been under the microscope since the beginning of the month in an inquest to determine if either was responsible for the death of Phumzile Dube, a young mother who died in the accident.

Yesterday in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court, evidence leader Yusuf Baba and Zuma’s lawyer, Gary Mazaham, debated in their closing arguments whether a criminal trial was necessary for justice to be meted out to Dube’s family.

Throughout the inquest, Mazaham has argued that his client hit a large puddle of water that sent Zuma’s Porsche 911 into the back of Dlamini’s taxi near the Grayston off-ramp on the |M1 South highway.

The concept of aquaplaning – or losing tyre traction because of wet conditions – and the speed Zuma was travelling at have been central issues during the inquest.

Baba defined the concept that forms the core of Zuma’s defence: the “doctrine of sudden emergency”. This states that a person cannot be prosecuted for not taking the most appropriate action in an emergency.

However, Baba said that did not hold if the emergency was created by, for example, a driver’s negligence. He argued that Zuma, travelling in heavy rain, could have potentially foreseen that water could have accumulated on the highway, and did not slow down accordingly.

“The court has to deal with only one aspect, the time prior to the collision up and until Mr Zuma hit the alleged puddle of water. Everything else is irrelevant,” said Baba.

He also noted there was no case law in South Africa regarding aquaplaning, and cited two similar court cases from North Carolina in the US. One case was of a driver who was sued for $400 000 for negligence after aquaplaning through a puddle into another vehicle. The court ruled that the aquaplaning driver was negligent because she could have expected accumulations of water in the rain, and thus it was not a sudden emergency.

Mazaham argued it was impossible for his client to |envision large pools of water on a highway that had a drainage system. The lawyer insisted that a subsequent investigation had also shown the drainage system was blocked and thus unable to handle such a volume of water.

To show that Zuma had taken the appropriate action when faced with an emergency situation, Mazaham argued his client had originally been travelling at 120km/hour, but when the rain became heavier, slowed to between 90km and 100km/h. He added that expert testimony from an accident reconstruction analyst showed it could have been more dangerous for vehicles |travelling behind Zuma if he had slowed down further.

Mazaham insisted that Zuma took the necessary precautions he could in the situation and was thus not negligent. He also argued there was a lack of evidence, meaning a trial would be a futile exercise as neither Dlamini nor Zuma deserved to be prosecuted.

However, Baba shot back that there was more than enough evidence to prosecute.

“It is my humble submission that Mr Zuma was negligent, and there is more than sufficient evidence to prefer a charge of culpable homicide,” he concluded.

The Star

 

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