South Africa is looking to introduce new speed limits

The Department of Transport and the Road Traffic Management Corporation are reviewing South Africa’s current speed limits.

Speaking to the Weekend Argus, Department of Transport spokesperson Ayanda Allie-Paine said the proposal could see the baseline top speeds across the country’s roads reduced by 20km/h.

This would effectively drop the speed limit on the country’s highways from 120km/h to 100km/h, while the top speeds on main roads would drop from 100km/h to 80km/h.

Speeds in residential areas would decrease from 60km/h to 40km/h.

“Our road safety strategy has considered all these factors. Legislation is being reviewed to address and bring in place an edifice of various interventions to respond adequately to the challenge that South Africa is facing,” Allie-Paine said.

“Among these, a review of the international best practice on speed reductions, as is the case in countries such as Sweden and Australia.

“Due to the unique situation in South Africa, these cannot just be implemented without an impact assessment study,” she said.

Demerit system 

The proposed review of speed limits comes after President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act into law in August 2019 – introducing a new demerit system for South African drivers.

However, not all infringements will carry demerit-points with roughly half of the infringements contemplated in schedule 3 of the Aarto regulations carrying no demerit points at all.

While the points and fines will likely change as the system prepares for a national roll-out, the tables below give an overview of how the points may be allocated as currently set out by the Road Traffic Infringement Agency (RTIA):

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