Points system gets thumbs down

Pretoria - Trade union Fedusa wants to put a spoke in the wheel of the current form of the penalty-point system for traffic offenders.

According to Logan Maistry, spokesperson for the department of labour, the system, which could cost offending drivers their driving licences, will come into operation throughout the country later this year.

In January Minister of Transport S'bu Ndebele said it would come into force on April 1. Maistry was unable to say whether this would indeed happen. According to him, a team is currently working on the details.

Fedusa general secretary Dennis George says workers whose driver's licences are suspended for three months, if they have 12 penalty points, could be dismissed if a driver's licence is a condition of employment.

Organised labour has, according to George, never been consulted in drawing up the legislation and it is worried that it could have unforeseen consequences, to workers' disadvantage.

He says Fedusa had asked for the issue be put on the agenda of Thursday's meeting by the National Economic, Development and Labour Council (Nedlac).

George says althugh Fedusa is concerned about the slaughter on the country's roads, the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act is not necessarily the solution.

It has been adopted from overseas to be simply implemented here, since George.

René Venter, the chief executive of Avax-SA 466CC, which managers traffic fines on behalf of 180 companies with a combined fleet of 15 000 vehicles, says up to 70% of her fleet clients might have lost their operators' cards over the past year if the penalty points system had been operational in the two Aarto pilot areas, Tshwane and Johannesburg.

- Sake24.com

For business news in Afrikaans, go to Sake24.com.