Picture: Ricardo Cates (left), girlfriend Nellie Ludick and their son, Nolan, at home on a farm near Hermanus. Ricardo and Nellie were paralysed in an accident and Nolan suffered brain damage. Lawyers are helping them to claim from the Road Accident Fund but the case could be bogged down in red tape for years. Meanwhile their medical and legal costs are mounting.
BE EXTREMELY cautious on SA’s roads - especially if you don’t have insurance or medical aid cover. Because being seriously injured in an accident could bankrupt you.
Since the Road Accident Fund Amendment Act came into effect last August you can no longer depend on the Road Accident Fund (RAF) to pay for medical treatment as payouts are restricted by the new law.
The main aim of the RAF when it was founded 63 years ago was to ensure innocent victims of road accidents were financially taken care of even if they weren’t insured.
It’s extremely difficult to have a claim paid despite it being money everyone is entitled to - every time you put fuel in your vehicle you contribute at least 46,5 cents a litre to the fund (from April it will be 64 cents). The fund receives R600 million to R700 million a month from the petrol levy.
Yet accident victims can wait years for claims to be paid as lawyers battle to secure payouts and legal fees increase. The fund has a backlog of up to R30 million in claims.
The Law Society of South Africa and the South African Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (Saapil) have obtained a court interdict to prevent the RAF from applying an amendment that would see claims paid directly to claimants rather than through lawyers, who usually take their fees then pay the balance to claimants.
Lawyers also want to fight amendments that limit claims. “Imagine if in a road accident you broke both arms and both legs, fractured your pelvis, hurt your neck, partially lost your hearing and suffered emotional shock and stress. According to the amended Act these are no longer regarded as serious injuries,” Saapil president Ronald Bobroff says. “So you’ll receive no compensation for what will be a lifetime of pain and suffering.”
Most accident victims will have to use state hospitals because the fund no longer pays private hospital tariffs. But can overloaded state hospitals deal with hundreds of thousands more trauma patients?
The amended law will probably end up in the Constitutional Court and will have to change, says Pretoria law expert Professor Hennie Klopper. “The Amendment Act will take away the fundamental rights of people to claim for damages after an accident. That’s unconstitutional.”
