The absurd reason South Africa won’t let driver’s licences last 10 years

Myles Illidge

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has slammed transport minister Sindisiwe Chikunga’s failure to extend the validity period of South African driving licence cards.

It also raised questions about the Road Traffic Management Corporation’s (RTMC) reasoning behind the need for a five-year validity period.

Outa noted the statement made by RTMC CEO Makhosini Msibi that many accidents on South African roads relate to infectious and other diseases, making regular eye tests crucial.

Outa said it found no communication or research to support Msibi’s statement.

“It is completely unfounded. Outa questions whether the relevant research was done to substantiate these claims, and if so, will that research be released to the public?”

“Many countries around the world have license validity well beyond five years. They are not immune to the supposed ‘communicable diseases’ reason provided. In simple terms, we find this reason to be ludicrous,” added Outa.

In February 2022, former transport minister Fikile Mbalula announced he had commissioned the RTMC to research the viability of extending the driving licence validity period.

He said the research would be compared to other countries to determine whether extending the validity period is beneficial or counter-productive.

“Should we arrive at a conclusion informed by the research, we will immediately spring into action,” said Mbalula.

In October 2022, Mbalula indicated that a new card would be tested and that the five-year validity period would be extended to eight.

“Despite the Minister indicating that it was decided to extend the validity period, he also said that he would be presenting the extension to cabinet for approval,” said Outa.

“As such, Outa, in November 2022, filed an application in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information (PAIA) to the RTMC, calling for a copy of the research report on the validity period to get clarity on how the eight years was decided.”

However, the RTMC refused to present its research to Outa, saying it was premature and ongoing.

“To this day, Outa has not seen the research conducted by the RTMC in 2022, yet according to the RTMC (now), an extension of the driving license card validity period is no longer viable due to ‘communicable diseases’,” Outa stated.

“Is there perhaps a financial motive?”

It added that it believes the Driving Licence Card Account and RTMC are falling short of their requirement to deliver efficient services at the lowest cost to residents.

Chikunga recently announced that the validity period of South Africa’s driving licence cards won’t be extended to eight or ten years.

The minister said the proposal to extend the validity period is no longer in the works; it will remain five years.

Chikunga said the decision to increase the validity period was made after Mbalula commissioned an investigation into international trends surrounding driving licence validity periods.

MyBroadband spoke to Automobile Association of South Africa (AA) spokesperson Layton Beard following the minister’s announcement.

He said the AA was surprised by the announcement, considering that government had researched the matter extensively.

“We’ve always had the view that anything from eight to 10 years is a more reasonable validity period than the current five years,” said Beard.

“We were led to believe that this was something that was going to be presented to cabinet in terms of a way forward.”

“We quite surprised that it hasn’t happened,” he added.

Beard said he was unsure of what Msibi referred to when he linked eye health and communicable diseases.

However, he noted that the AA views eye tests as “almost a non-issue”, with many motorists going to opticians to perform their eye tests.

“Currently, there are many DLTCs that can’t perform eye tests because their machines are broken,” said Beard.

“So people are, in any case, going to private opticians who are registered, and then they’re taking the eye tests with them to the DLTC to renew their licence.”

“We don’t see why this system can’t continue and, in fact, be beefed up,” he added.

source:The absurd reason South Africa won’t let driver’s licences last 10 years (mybroadband.co.za)