MBABANE – Motorists from Eswatini travelling in and around South Africa will soon face tighter enforcement of road traffic laws, with the official rollout of the Aarto system scheduled to begin in December 2025.
The Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) law introduces structured penalties for speeding, with a grace margin of 10km/h above the posted limit. According to officials, this tolerance accounts for small inaccuracies in vehicle speedometers and aims to reduce unnecessary court congestion. It will not apply to average speed-over-distance cameras, which calculate speeds using checkpoints across longer routes.
South African authorities will implement the system across 69 municipalities starting in December. The remaining areas are expected to follow by April 2026. Although the new demerit point system forms part of Aarto, it will only come into effect in September 2026.
Under the current Aarto speeding framework, drivers will only face fines once they exceed the speed limit by more than 10km/h. Those travelling between 11km/h and 15km/h over the limit will be fined R250, while offences between 16km/h and 20km/h carry a R500 fine and one demerit point once the points system becomes active.
Heavier penalties follow for higher speed ranges. A R750 fine and two points will apply for speeds up to 25km/h over the limit, with fines rising in R250 increments. The steepest fine, R1,500, will be issued for drivers caught between 36km/h and 40km/h over the limit. Anyone exceeding the speed limit by more than 40km/h will be arrested and required to appear in court.
The Aarto rollout will affect many emaSwati who travel to South Africa regularly for business, leisure or cross-border trade. Public transport drivers, delivery services and private motorists are urged to familiarise themselves with the brackets to avoid fines and potential licence suspensions when the points system begins next year.
Separately, a controversial proposal by South Africa’s Road Traffic Management Corporation to reduce speed limits countrywide has drawn strong criticism. If implemented, the proposal would lower highway speed limits from 120km/h to 110km/h, with urban and rural roads reduced to 50km/h and 90km/h respectively.
The Automobile Association of South Africa rejected the idea, calling for a broader strategy to reduce fatalities. The association pointed to issues like road maintenance, driver behaviour and law enforcement failures as more urgent than speed alone.
Industry voices echoed the concern. Rob Handfield-Jones, managing director of Driving.co.za, said South Africa’s focus on speed enforcement overlooks deeper problems such as intoxicated driving, corruption in licensing, and the general lack of respect for road laws.
Handfield-Jones referred to 1998, the year the Arrive Alive campaign was launched, as South Africa’s safest period on the roads. Despite fewer speeding fines issued that year, the road fatality rate was nearly half of what it is today.
With over 12 million speeding fines issued annually in recent years, some experts argue that enforcement may have become more of a revenue source than a solution to road deaths.
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