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We’re still trying to wrap our heads around the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act, complete with a demerit system.

Rack up too many demerit points and you can say goodbye to your licence.

While that, at least, has been in the works for a while, the decision to start renaming airports came out of the left field.

Do we really need to be spending money on renaming things right now?

No, not really. We have a pandemic and a battered economy to deal with.

The mind boggles at the things that seem to have taken priority in various governmental departments over the past couple of weeks, the latest being a return to the idea that we need new number plates on South African cars. To be fair, though, I will point out that this was first put forward in 2015.

Transport director-general Alec Moemi announced the forthcoming change while presenting the National Road Traffic Amendment Bill to Parliament on Tuesday, October 13.

BusinessTech pulled a few key quotes from that speech.

Here’s Moemi:

“We are looking at a new system that will include the embedding of microdots into a new number plate, that will then be regulated.

“Manufacturers, as well as those that print out and issue them to motor vehicle owners (will also be regulated) so that number plates that are forged will be easily identified.”

Look, it’s not a bad idea, and will certainly make it harder to forge plates, while at the same time making it easier to identify cars on the roads.

A microdot, for those out of the loop, is “a particle with a diameter smaller than 1,8 mm which bears a unique, optically readable microdot identifier”. This will likely be the vehicle’s 17-digit VIN number or another registered PIN.

Technology not unlike that used for e-tolls (the worst) will be used to track and trace the dots, which will be useful for managing “traffic patterns and hotspots” says Moemi.

The idea is to introduce this by the end of 2021.

No word on how exactly it will be rolled out.

Number plates, as “2FAST4U WP” will tell you, don’t come cheap.

[source:businesstech]