{"id":307040,"date":"2019-03-26T10:03:49","date_gmt":"2019-03-26T08:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=307040"},"modified":"2019-03-26T10:03:49","modified_gmt":"2019-03-26T08:03:49","slug":"big-push-to-introduce-new-south-african-drunk-driving-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/307040\/big-push-to-introduce-new-south-african-drunk-driving-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"Big push to introduce new South African drunk driving laws"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) says that it plans to push forward with the introduction of strict new drunk driving rules in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>In November 2018, the RTMC <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/281687\/new-strict-rules-proposed-for-drunk-drivers-in-south-africa-report\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">proposed<\/a> <\/strong>to the Department of Justice that driving under the influence (DUI), speeding and reckless or negligent driving be reclassified in terms of the Criminal Procedure Act.<\/p>\n<p>This would include changing DUI from a schedule 2 to a schedule 5 offence, which would place drunk driving in the same \u2018category\u2019 of crimes as rape and murder.<\/p>\n<p>It also wants arrested drivers to spend at least seven days behind bars before they can be considered for bail.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to BusinessTech, RTMC spokesperson Simon Zwane said that the corporation was still pushing for the changes to be made, as it has seen a number of subsequent crashes as a result of drunk driving.<\/p>\n<p>He added that a December 2018 report from the World Health Organisation showed that 60% of road fatalities in South Africa are attributable to alcohol abuse.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our position remains the same and we want to do everything possible to save lives,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Zwane said that the changes would not be made overnight and would require the formal introduction of new legislation.<\/p>\n<p>Commenting on the severity of the bail time, Zwane said that the current laws already allow for longer bail time to be imposed to a certain extent.<\/p>\n<p>He cited a recent KZN case where a taxi driver was not granted bail for seven days after killing three children.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is the kind of thing we want to apply consistently,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/306996\/south-african-driver-sentenced-to-6-months-in-jail-for-bribing-traffic-officers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">South African driver sentenced to 6 months in jail for bribing traffic officers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) has confirmed that it plans to push forward with the introduction of strict new drunk driving rules in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":195278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11119],"tags":[26,10273],"class_list":["post-307040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-headline","tag-rtmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307040"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":307050,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307040\/revisions\/307050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}