How does a company “nominate” the correct driver who incurred the traffic fine?

Question:

Just wanting to know when our company receives a traffic fine and we pay this can we after payment still change the drivers details ? We normally pay the fines and then deduct the monies back from the driver responsible for the offence. That leeds to my question of changing the drivers details after payment and how does this work ? What forms must we fill in and file ?

Answer:

Just like the acting CEO of the RTMC and the Minister of Transport, when you pay a fine made out to your company, you are admitting guilt on behalf of your company – not the driver and therefore the following applies:

• You may not legally deduct the fine amount from your driver’s salary or wages as you have admitted guilt on behalf of the Proxy of your company, whose details appear on the infringement notice.
• You may not subsequently nominate the driver as the prosecution of the case has been finalised by your payment of the fine.

The LEGALLY CORRECT process is and always has been as follows:

On receipt of an infringement notice:

1. If it is a Section 341 of the Criminal Procedure Act notice, complete the driver nomination redirection section on the notice and post it back to the issuing authority.
2. If it is an AARTO 03 infringement notice, download and complete the AARTO 07 driver nomination form and send it to the issuing authority.

In both cases, the original infringement notice must be cancelled by the issuing authority and re-issued to the natural person (driver) you nominate.  This means that your company will not be responsible for the infringement notice in any way and it will effectively become the driver in question’s problem – not yours.

I am well aware of the fact that many companies have written clauses into their employees’ contracts stating that they will be held accountable for traffic fines that they incur.  It is my standpoint that, whilst it is legally correct to hold individuals responsible for fines they incur, paying traffic fines issued to that company and then deducting it from a driver’s salary is not legally correct since the traffic fine is not made out to the driver.  Regardless of whether an employee was driving the vehicle at the time of the alleged infringement or not, payment of it constitutes an admission of guilt by the entity in whose name the infringement notice was made out.

Nominating the driver is administratively far less complicated than paying fines and then deducting monies from the employee and I therefore cannot for the life of me understand why companies have adopted and continue to practice this legally flawed methodology.  Perhaps it has something to do with ignorance and perhaps it has something to do with being lazy to do what the law caters for, but either way, it is not the correct thing to do.

Best Regards,

Howard Dembovsky

National Chairman – Justice Project South Africa (NPC)

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