POINTS BEFORE COFFEE: AARTO IS LIVE, AND DEMERITS ARE NEXT

If you are reading this over breakfast, you are probably less than an hour from your first robot. It is worth knowing, before you pull out of the driveway, that the law waiting at that intersection changed more this month than it has in a generation - and that the part everyone fears, the demerit points, is the one part that has not started yet.

What happened on 1 July

After a quarter-century of false starts, the national rollout of the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences Act 46 of 1998 (AARTO) began in earnest on 1 July 2026. Two proclamations brought the Act and its Amendment Act into operation in some sixty further municipalities - including KwaDukuza, home to our Ballito office - joining Johannesburg and Tshwane, which have run the system in pilot form for years. The remaining municipalities are earmarked for a later phase, and the Western Cape, for now, sits outside the net.

The change is structural, not cosmetic. Ordinary traffic infringements have left the criminal justice system altogether: no more admission-of-guilt fines under the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977, but an administrative process run by the Road Traffic Infringement Agency (RTIA). New AARTO Regulations, gazetted on 1 July 2026, grade every contravention as a minor infringement, a major infringement or an offence, and attach a rand penalty - and, for the future, a demerit-point value - to each. Genuinely serious conduct, such as drunken or reckless driving, remains criminal and still ends in a courtroom.

Why “I never saw the fine” is dead

Under AARTO, service by electronic means - email, SMS, even WhatsApp - is legally effective. The soggy slip under the wiper blade is giving way to a notification on your phone, and a notice properly sent to the contact details on record can stand whether or not you open it.

From service, a strict clock runs:

1. Days 1 to 32: pay at a 50% discount, make representations, or nominate the person who was actually driving.

2. Miss the window: a courtesy letter follows; the discount falls away and R60 in fees is added.

3. Ignore that too: an enforcement order is issued, another R60 is added, and you are blocked on eNATIS - no vehicle licence disc renewal, no driving licence card renewal, until it is cleared.

The immediate practical point: your contact details on NaTIS are now a legal risk item. If the system holds a dead email address, notices can still be validly served on it. Update them this week.

The demerit system: a target date, not a start date

Here is the detail much of the coverage has missed. The proclamations that commenced AARTO on 1 July expressly exclude sections 24 to 28 of the Act - the demerit-point provisions. The date of 1 September 2026, widely reported since last year’s rollout gazette, is a target rather than a certainty: the RTIA itself now says the Minister of Transport will determine the commencement date in due course. The rest of the schedule has already slipped once; treat September as a warning shot, not a promise.

Once the points do go live, the mechanics - as matters stand - are these:

• Every driver starts on zero, and fines incurred before commencement carry no points - though they remain payable and can still ripen into enforcement orders.

• Each infringement will attract up to six points, over and above the fine.

• The ceiling is 15 points - six for learner drivers. Every point above the ceiling costs a three-month suspension of the licence.

• Points fade at one per three months of clean driving.

• Two suspensions are the lifetime allowance. A third cancels the licence entirely, and you start again at the learner’s test.

The part the motoring pages skipped: your business

For anyone operating vehicles - from a two-bakkie plumbing outfit to a national fleet - AARTO compounds:

• Where a vehicle is registered to a juristic person, notices go to the registered operator or its nominated proxy. Unless the actual driver is formally nominated, the fine - and, once the system commences, the points - sticks to the operator. Demerits will attach to operator cards vehicle by vehicle, and a vehicle whose operator card is suspended cannot lawfully be driven, or sold.

• Employment law follows close behind. An employee who loses their licence through demerits is not, without more, guilty of misconduct: it is an incapacity question, with its own fair process, wherever driving is a material term of the job. Contracts and fleet policies should already answer who pays fines, who must disclose points, and what happens on suspension. Most don’t.

• Insurers price risk off records, and a demerit history is a record. Expect underwriting - and premiums - to take an interest.

  
  

Challenging a notice

AARTO’s design does away with the old shortcut of simply electing a day in the magistrates’ court. The route now runs through written representations to the RTIA, with a new Appeals Tribunal above it - a body that, on the RTIA’s own account, is only partly constituted. The deadlines are short and unforgiving, so the worst available strategy remains the traditional one: the glovebox filing system.

Five things to do this week

1. Update your contact details - and your staff’s - on NaTIS.

2. Pull your outstanding fines at aarto.gov.za (“Query my Fine”) and deal with each inside its 32-day window: pay at the discount, make representations, or nominate the true driver.

3. Watch for the demerit proclamation. The target in circulation is 1 September 2026, but the commencement date rests with the Minister - we will flag it the moment it is gazetted.

4. If you run vehicles: put a written driver-nomination process in place, and have your employment contracts and fleet policy reviewed for the demerit era.

5. If eNATIS has already blocked you, resolve it now - not at the licensing counter with an expired disc.

AARTO’s wager is that better information changes behaviour before penalties have to. On that much, we agree - consider this your first serving. If your fleet policy, employment contracts or an unwelcome enforcement order needs attention, our Johannesburg and Ballito offices are open before most robots turn green.

This publication is general information current as at 21 July 2026 and is not legal advice. AARTO’s implementation dates have shifted before and may shift again; please obtain advice on your specific circumstances before acting. © Gittins Attorneys Inc.