Outstanding Fines

Zinhle Sokhela:  PCB Director 

I was a very proud chairperson when Safe City Pietermaritzburg presented the Mayor of Msunduzi with a laptop computer which would enable the city to implement a programme of fine recovery from the thousands of motorists who have failed to pay up. It is estimated that the outstanding amount is about R9 million or more. Considering the limited sources from which municipalities are able to draw revenue, this is one that should not be sacrificed because of the lack of will to engage in proper enforcement. Perhaps this is harsh. Our courts are so congested dealing with real crime that speeding and other traffic offences are no more than an obstruction. In reality, we don’t want our magistrates and prosecutors spending their time dealing with errant motorists. At the same time, however, we must have order on our roads and this means that laws must be enforced. Such enforcement should include the recovery of outstanding fines because those who have had summons issued against them and still do not pay or report to court, are in contempt. It represents a breakdown in the rule of law if people can hold the court in contempt and get away with it. Well, as far as traffic fines are concerned, they won’t get away with it for much longer. Our new system is highly sophisticated and will enable traffic officers to stop only those vehicles that are linked to an outstanding warrant of arrest and not a whole string of others that are normally pulled off the road in a roadblock. The system is wizard technology. The camera, the same one used in the camera surveillance network that is in place throughout the city, reads the vehicles’ registration numbers, sends them electronically to the central database which then highlights those that need to be apprehended. This information is then relayed via the laptop to the officers on the street who are able to print out there and then the details of the outstanding warrant. All this takes seconds and no longer than it takes for the vehicle to travel beyond the roadblock. The demonstration was remarkable. The roadblock had been set up in busy street. During a period of half an hour the laptop pinged many times, each ping being associated with a vehicle to be stopped. In a short time, there was a long queue of vehicles by the side of the road, and they were going to remain there until the outstanding fines were paid. One of the vehicles was indentified as stolen, showing that the system will not only deal with speedsters and other road-rule violators, but also those who drive stolen vehicles or those that are unregistered. I doubt whether the introduction of this equipment will be to everyone’s liking. It certainly won’t be to those who are caught. Until such time as the traffic department is able to arrange for credit card payments at the site, motorists have to be escorted to the court to pay. This is likely to take more than two hours, and will result in a good deal of anger and frustration. But I remind myself that these people had the chance to pay their fines, or contest them in court, and they deliberately withheld this payment in the belief, perhaps, that no effort would be made to recover them. So, they don’t deserve sympathy – they offended in the first place and then failed to obey the summons. It is very sad, I believe, that we are so disrespectful of law and order. We think it is clever to get away with something and that the state, or government at any level, is fair game. What we do not realise is that all this non compliance results in circumstances which make for a fractured and unhappy society. If we cheat the government, we end up paying more in the long run, or, perhaps, someone else has to foot the bill. The longer we leave someone else to carry the financial burden, the more it impacts on us in the long run. Imagine how much poverty might have been alleviated if all people had paid their taxes and their fines, and had also refrained from trying to rip the state off with inflated tenders and shoddy work.

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