Car rental companies are breathing a sigh of relief as authorities have postponed the implementation of the AARTO (Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences) Act, which would severely impact these companies’ ability to deal with fines.

The roll-out of AARTO was scheduled to be complete by December 31. As part of the Act, demerit points will be allocated to infringers. And therein lies the problem for car-rental companies, as they are held liable for fines incurred by their clients. With the delay, says Savrala GM, Val van den Bergh, Savrala can hopefully conclude development of an automated system to help streamline the current process of redirecting fines so that the notice of infringement is issued directly to the driver, not the owner, of the vehicle. “The fact that the AARTO roll-out has been postponed will give Savrala more time to have the regulation changes implemented successfully. It is not car-rental companies that are traffic offenders, rather the clients driving the cars. “Many Savrala members have accumulated large volumes of traffic fines, many of which haven’t been redirected by the authorities to the offenders in question. This has resulted in Savrala members being harassed and the delay in registration and licensing of vehicles.” Savrala members accumulate an estimated 400 000 traffic fines a year. Of these, 150 000 are from foreign residents and all these need to be redirected. Currently, the first infringement notice goes to the relevant Savrala member, not the driver responsible. “This results in a lengthy process to redirect the penalty to the driver, a mission which is often impossible. Not only does this delay the payment of the penalty, it also means that the Savrala member remains liable.” Europcar MD, Dawn Nathan Jones, believes the introduction of AARTO will lead to a “large consumer paradigm shift”. Says Nathan Jones: “The postponement is better for our customers. The system can be rectified before it becomes public.”