There was a resounding 'no' from Gauteng's motorists when asked if they had bought an e-tag just before the recentl launch of e-tolls, 91% still did not have an e-tag and 71% of these do not intend to buy one in the future.
702 Eyewitness News (EWN) commissioned Ask Afrika to conduct a survey a day ahead of the launch to gage the reaction to the e-toll system. When asked if they would pay for an e-toll account if received, only 43% of the respondents said yes.
Of the 222 people that were interviewed, 71% attested that the introduction of the e-tolls will cause them to use alternative routes rather than the highways. 81% of the respondents also realise that the alternate routes will not be able to cope with the traffic created as a result of the introduction of e-tolls.
Paida Mugudubi, the Commercial Director for Consumer Markets at Ask Afrika said, "What would be interesting in the future, give it a couple of months or weeks would be to go back to these motorists and ask them what they have actually done because at this moment there seems to be an indication that there is a lot of apathy, but it's different when you actually have a debt collector on your door."
Ask Afrika used a quantative, Computer Assisted Telephonic Interview (CATI) data collection. Random digit dialing in the Gauteng area was implemented to reach over 200 respondents on 2 December 2013.
The overwhelming response from motorists interviewed yesterday by 702 EWN at Sanral outlets felt that their fate was sealed. One Gauteng motorist said, "We don't have a choice but to get an e-tag, I mean they did say that if we don't then they are going to implement lawsuits against us. It is true that many of us don't have money but we should look after the little bit that we have."
Before last week's launch over 800 000 motorists had registered with a spike in last minute registering. However in general, the launch of the multi-billion rand e-tolling network was met with anger and vows from societies and churches to keep fighting in the hope of collapsing the system through defiance and non-compliance.
