The Expert will be specific knowledgeable people at the Department of Transport, Arrive Alive Communications, the Road Traffic Management Corporation or others who might have the expertise to answer the question.
“Fines” or Section 341 Notices have a life of their own and there is apparently no length of validity although schedule 3 of the Criminal Procedures Act, 51 1977 does provide for payment of an admission of guilt fine within 30 days of issue of the Section 341 Notice. Once the 30 days has expired and no payment of an admission of guilt fine has been forthcoming, a summons is supposed to be issued but this rarely happens with traffic fines issued under the CPA.
Fines outstanding from 2 or 3 years ago are problematic since if summons were indeed issued in accordance with the Act at this stage, a competent attorney could easily argue that an unreasonable amount of time that has transpired and would not allow the accused to mount a defence due to the fact that one cannot go back in time to inspect such things as the road conditions, traffic signs etc. If one really thinks about it logically, the issuing authority should also be regarded as not having complied with the Act, however one has to bear in mind that the courts are rarely inclined to sanction traffic authorities for not sticking to the protocols they should comply with.
So, in short the legislation and guidelines on this issue are about as clear as mud.
Of course, all of this will change with the national implementation of the AARTO on 1 April 2010. The Act changes almost everything about how traffic law enforcement is applied and timeframes are clearly defined. Whether traffic authorities stick to those laws or not remains to be seen and this has certainly not been the case in the Pilot implementation areas of Johannesburg and Tshwane. I would say that everyone is in for a rough ride when AARTO comes into effect nationally.
