NRTA Safety Regs
National Road Traffic Regulations, 2000 (GN R.225): Vehicle Fitness, Equipment and Loads
The regulations that decide whether a vehicle may lawfully be on a public road: roadworthiness, brakes, lamps, tyres, belts, mass and how a load is secured.
Sections
16
Duties
18
Questions
31
Assessment from
R 22 500
What it covers
These are the regulations made under section 75 of the National Road Traffic Act, and they are the ones a roadside stop is conducted against. Almost every duty in them is written the same way, as a prohibition on the person operating the vehicle: no person shall operate on a public road a motor vehicle unless some condition is met. That wording is why they bind the business rather than the driver alone. The company dispatching the vehicle is operating it. The fitness half is a short list with long consequences. A goods vehicle over 3 500 kilograms, a bus, a breakdown vehicle, a large or twelve seat minibus and anything carrying people for reward each need a roadworthy certificate, and that certificate expires with the vehicle's licence disc rather than a year after the test. A bus is on six months. Brakes must be in good working order every time the vehicle goes out, not at the annual test. Tyres fail the regulation long before they are bald: exposed cord, a cut to the cords, a bulge from a broken carcass or a tread under one millimetre each ground the vehicle on their own. The load half is where the heavy penalty sits. Exceeding the gross vehicle mass, an axle massload or the combination mass, loading above 4,3 metres, failing to secure a load inside the body or to the vehicle, and carrying people in an unwalled goods compartment are all offences under regulation 333, which carries a fine or imprisonment for up to six years, or both. Six years is not a figure the regulations use anywhere else in this subject matter. The enforcement that actually costs money is not the fine. A traffic officer or an examiner of vehicles who finds a vehicle unroadworthy may serve a notice under section 44 of the Act directing that it not be operated, and regulation 148 requires the licence disc to be removed and destroyed when that notice is issued. The vehicle then has to be taken to a testing station before it can be licensed again. A grounded vehicle earns nothing and the load it was carrying is somebody else's problem. This assessment covers Chapter VI as it binds an operator. It does not cover type approval, compulsory specifications, lamp construction, the fixed dimension limits, driver licensing or dangerous goods.
Does this apply to you?
This applies to you if your business puts a vehicle on a public road, whoever owns it and whoever is driving. The duties are written as prohibitions on operating, and the operator is the person responsible for the use of the vehicle, so a company dispatching a subcontractor's truck under its own instruction is operating that truck.
It applies whether or not you carry passengers and whether or not you carry goods for reward. A mine's surface fleet, a construction company's tippers, a bakery's delivery bakkies and a bus operator's coaches are all inside it. The only thing that changes between them is which vehicle classes the roadworthy certificate, the seatbelt, the governor and the mass provisions catch.
Answer per vehicle class where a question names one. A fleet of light panel vans does not need a roadworthy certificate under regulation 142 and does need working brakes, belts, tyres, a triangle and a secured load, so a blanket answer across a mixed fleet will be wrong in both directions.
If you operate only vehicles under 3 500 kilograms with no passengers for reward, regulations 142, 145, 215(1A), 239 and 247 will mostly not reach you, and everything else here will.
Where this text comes from
Transcribed 2026-10-19. Check the provision against the source before relying on it in a filing.
What non-compliance costs
Regulation 333 sets the heavy bracket: a fine or imprisonment for a period not exceeding six years, or both, for contravening any of the dimension, mass, load securing or passenger carrying regulations it lists. That includes the overall height limit in regulation 224, the mass limits in regulation 239, the load securing rules in regulation 246 and the goods compartment rules in regulation 247, all of which are in this record.
Everything else here is an offence under section 89(1) of the Act, because section 1 of the Act defines "this Act" to include the regulations, so a contravention of a regulation is a contravention of the Act. Section 89(6) sets the penalty for a provision not specifically listed in section 89(2) to (5) at a fine or imprisonment for up to one year.
The operational consequence is heavier than either. Under section 44 of the Act a traffic officer or an examiner of vehicles may serve a notice directing that an unroadworthy vehicle not be operated, or be operated only on stated conditions, and regulation 148(1) requires the licence disc to be removed and destroyed at the same time. Regulation 148(2) allows a limited further period, not exceeding 14 days, subject to limits on speed and route. The vehicle must then go to a testing station. Two trucks grounded in a week is a contract lost.
What the assessment covers
The assessment works through 31 questions across 18 duties, scored out of 233. Each answer generates the specific actions needed to close or prove that duty, and a “yes” only counts once its evidence is in, which is what makes the score defensible rather than self-declared.
The questions themselves are part of the assessment.
Find out where you stand on NRTA Safety Regs
Run the assessment, get your score, and get the exact list of what to fix, with the evidence trail an auditor will ask for.