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A driving expert from Johannesburg says the new-regulation number plates for Gauteng is a money-making scheme.
Rob Handfield-Jones, of driving.co.za, says the new plates are not about crime prevention or open road tolling: “They're about ensuring continued revenue flow from speed trapping.”
Handfield-Jones was reacting to a statement by Neil Cambell of the Democratic Alliance, who earlier said the plates will cost R360 and will have to be renewed every five years. “This is apparently because they fade and cannot be picked up by speed cameras after five years which is indicative of poor quality plates."
Handfield-Jones says statistics show that six times as many speed fines are issued per year now as in 1998. “One would expect that this would have made the roads safer. Actually, fatality risk on our roads has doubled since 1998. Relying on speed control for safer roads is a failed experiment which must be abandoned in favour in increased prosecution of moving violations.”
“I have called in the past for a five-yearly inspection of number plates with condition-based replacement. This is an acceptable contribution to law enforcement and ensures any non-compliant plates are replaced.
“Mandatory five-yearly replacement to support a failed speed trapping policy is absolutely unacceptable and I call on citizens to reject this costly and unnecessary legislation by lobbying their public representatives to oppose it in the Gauteng legislature.”
