Rally against e-toll
Approximately 2 500 motorcycles took part in the Bikers Against Toll (BAT) on January 25.
“No head count is ever made officially, but it is not 5 000 as some reports are stating,” says BAT spokesman James Sleigh.
The motor vehicles were estimated at between 800 to 1 000 cars.
James says the support they had was as predicted and the numbers on the bikes fairly accurate.
He adds the event went off mostly as planned and the turnout was fantastic.
The aim with the toll protests are twofold, bikers are discriminated against where National tolls are concerned. A motorcycle pays the same fee as an SUV towing a caravan.
“This unfair charge on bikes is what brought BAT into existence,” he says.
Prominent members of the biking community have been in discussions with the DoT and various ministers for years regarding these unfair fees on bikes, but have run into a brick wall with no compromise from the government.
Biking groups over the years tried ad hoc protests by blockading toll gantries to no avail.
“We formed BAT to unite bikers countrywide and to give bikers a voice by forming a national organisation to represent bikers at this level,” says James.
Urban Tolling began rolling out in Gauteng which brought the campaign to life with an immediate fight to stop further tolling of freeways. Without going into all the injustices that tolling brings, BAT, as a community, rejects any form of tolling and believes that there is enough money to run maintenance and upgrades with the funds already collected by government.
“With media reports of billions of rands stolen, squandered and mismanaged every year; the fuel levy collecting R41.7-billion a year and only around R7-billion being used for roads is unacceptable. We refuse to be a slush fund for civil servants, while they waste our taxes,” he adds.
The E-Roads Act was the final straw.
BAT’s aim is to build a passive resistance or defiance campaign against Sanral and the Department of Transport against e-tolling and to encourage others not to be intimidated by the bullying tactics being used by Sanral to enforce compliance to what it believes is an unjust law.
One of the founders of democracy, Thomas Jefferson, states “It is not just right to oppose unjust laws you are obligated to”.
