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SANRAL detractors who are suggesting the agency is doing something illegal by having blue lights on traffic control vehicles assisting on the Gauteng highways have got it completely wrong, the agency says. These vehicles need to have blue light. If they don’t, they operate illegally.
 
To suggest anything else, without checking the facts, exposes the shallowness and lack of understanding of those who purport to be experts on the matter. In fact, the South African National Roads Agency SOC Ltd (SANRAL) has taken legal advice every step of the way in implementing the highway e-toll system – and won every challenge that has been taken to the courts of the country.
 
"Those who want to challenge us on the legality of the use of blue lights are welcome to do so. It is not their opinion that matters but what the law says and we are confident we have done everything by the book. What we do is legal. And that is the case with the blue lights on our vehicles too,” says Vusi Mona, the roads agency’s head of communications.
 
The attempted controversy over the use of blue lights on traffic control vehicles is just a red herring. The vehicles comply with the applicable legislation and operate within the law when assisting in reducing the scourge of illegal vehicles operating on the roads.
 
The blue lights are only operated by and in the presence of a traffic officer.
 
“What is more important here is the effort to do proper enforcement on our roads, thereby addressing issues such as non-road worthy vehicles, vehicles without number plates or false number plates and other road traffic offences. Self-styled champions of justice and the rule of law ought to be addressing themselves to these issues instead of trying to undermine sound and legal attempts to assist law enforcers on Gauteng's highways,” says Mona.