Many of South Africa’s traffic officers are not legally registered and may be operating in violation of the very law they are tasked to uphold, says the Automobile Association (AA).
Briefing members of Parliament’s transport portfolio committee on Wednesday, AA public affairs manager Gary Ronald said there were ”only about 6 000 registered traffic officers” in possession of a valid force number.
According to government, there are some 8 000 traffic officers in South Africa, including provincial, local authority and metro officers.
Ronald said delays in registration were the result of ”MECs and other heads” not forwarding the necessary information to the department of transport.
”The implication of this is that officers handing out tickets are in violation of the very law they uphold,” he said. Contacted for comment later on Wednesday, Arrive Alive representative Ntau Letebele told Sapa traffic officers could not operate if they were not registered.
”This is required by law,” he said.
Letebele confirmed their were an ”estimated” 8 000 traffic officials nationally.
Ronald agreed every traffic officer had to be registered, but warned ”many officials are not in possession of a valid (force) number”.
”If there are 6 000 officers, it is a lot,” he said.
On road traffic accidents in South Africa, he said the latest available figures showed that in 1998 there were 512 000 accidents, with 9 086 fatalities, 36 246 people seriously injured and 84 358 slightly injured.
”Forty percent of fatalities and injuries involved pedestrians,” he said. – Sapa