Traffic Highway New regulations have been signed into law by President Ramaphosa. Picture: Newspress
Image: Newspress
President Cyril Ramaphosa recently signed the National Road Traffic Amendment Bill, 2020, into law, paving the way for a raft of new regulations affecting everything from accident response to vehicle inspection, licence examination and number plate production.
However, the new regulations will not take force until they have been gazetted by government, and some of the provisions also require regulations that have not been finalised as yet.
Under the new Act, driving schools will have to be registered and graded in order to continue practicing, and additional offences relating to fraudulent learner and driving licence testing have been added.
It also stipulates more clearly the requirements for suspending or cancelling the registration of driving licence and vehicle examiners as well as traffic officers.
The law will also disqualify vehicle examiners and traffic officers who are found to have a direct or indirect financial interest in a road transport services business, including through a spouse or partner.
Incident management after accidents will become compulsory under the new law, and emergency services will be obliged to respond immediately to road incidents and render all necessary services as prescribed. Furthermore, drivers of emergency vehicles may not cross intersections at more than 20km/h (presumably this only applies to red traffic lights) and must ensure that they are visible.
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More extensive regulation will also apply to the number plate manufacturing industry, Microdot fitment as well as vehicle manufacturing and importing.
The government describes the Amendment Bill, which amends the National Road Traffic Act of 1996, as a “far-reaching, new dispensation in road safety.”
It forms part of a new National Road Safety Strategy that’s based around five pillars: road safety management; safer roads and mobility; safer vehicles; safer road users, and post-crash response.
Which is all positive in theory, but without adequate enforcement, all these additional regulations won't be worth the paper they're written on.
IOL
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