Quick fix for driving licence chaos in South Africa

South Africa’s driving licence printing machine is out of order for the 160th time in its over 26 years of operation, creating a significant production backlog.

However, one adjustment to the country’s traffic laws — extending the licence card’s validity period to eight or 10 years — would provide immediate relief for motorists and ease the burden on the Driving Licence Card Account (DLCA).

The Department of Transport hasn’t revealed the extent of the backlog. However, assuming most applicants applied recently, a validity period extension would enable them to keep driving with their current cards without fear of prosecution.

This could provide relief until the department can move ahead on procuring new driving licence printing machines.

Civil action entity Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has long advocated for extending South Africa’s driving licence validity period, which is currently five years.

Its efforts almost paid off. In October 2022, former transport minister Fikile Mbalula, who served from May 2019 to March 2024, said his department would propose extending the validity period to eight years.

His revelation came after Outa, the Automobile Association of South Africa (AA), and Afriforum pressured him to consider an extension.

“We are changing the lifespan, timeframe of the driver’s licence…it will be eight years. We are going to cabinet with that,” Mbalula said.

However, after nearly two years of waiting, his successor, Sindisiwe Chikunga, announced in June 2024 that the driving licence validity period would not be extended.

Chikunga said the decision to increase the validity period came after Mbalula commissioned an investigation through the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC).

This investigation was to study international trends concerning driving licence validity periods.

RTMC CEO Makhosini Msibi said many accidents on South African roads relate to infectious and other diseases, making regular eye tests crucial and necessary every five years.

Absurd excuses and a non-existent study

Outa slammed the RTMC’s reasoning, describing it as “absurd”.

Subsequently, it was discovered that no such report existed and that the only report in existence was, in fact, from infrastructure, engineering, and advisory practice Zutari.

Zutari had submitted its Driving Licence Card Validity Period Review to the RTMC in May 2022.

The RTMC previously refused to share the findings with Outa. However, a report on the findings was provided after Outa made a request using the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA).

“This report recommended extending the card validity period for drivers of light vehicles to eight years, which the RTMC and department have clearly ignored,” said Outa.

Zutari’s report did not mention the communicable disease issue necessitating regular eye tests.

In fact, one of its findings in this regard was that many countries only required medical checks for drivers, including eye tests, from the age of 50.

“For a good number of the driving licence renewal processes done before the age limit, there are no medical examinations (eye tests or fitness to drive) performed,” the report stated.

Outa also requested the report outlining the communicable disease issue, only to be told it doesn’t exist.

“We have taken reasonable steps to find a copy of the alleged research, and for that reason, it cannot be found; thus, it does not exist,” it was told.

Outa’s executive director, Stefanie Fick, accused the RTMC of deliberately misleading the public with its absurd reasoning for not extending the validity period.

“Outa now questions the motives of the RTMC, as the ultimate decision to extend the validity period lies with the Minister of Transport, who in turn should not be influenced by an entity with vested financial interests in the decision,” she said.

“We find the reasons advanced by the RTMC to be ludicrous and lacking in any factual basis.”

AA surprised by the sudden u-turn

Former AA spokesperson, Layton Beard, told MyBroadband that the organisation was taken aback by the decision not to extend South Africa’s driving licence validity period.

He said the decision was especially surprising considering the RTMC had conducted extensive research into the matter.

“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 are quite surprised that it hasn’t happened.”

He added that the fact that the eight-year extension proposal wasn’t tabled before cabinet raised concerns, considering how it could ease the administrative burden on the government in the long run.

“They commissioned research, and they said the research supported the view that the validity period should be extended,” said Beard.

“The fact that it wasn’t put in front of cabinet is something we’d like to understand. We’d like to know what the reason behind it not being tabled was.”

When asked about the issues with eye health and communicable diseases, Beard said he was unsure what the RTMC CEO was referring to.

However, he said that the AA views eye tests as “almost a non-issue”, adding that many motorists opt to visit opticians for 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.”

He questioned why the system couldn’t continue as is, arguing that linking eye tests to a system police officers could access would enable them to verify motorists’ eye tests when stopped.

A warning

While extending the validity period could provide a quick fix for the current driving licence card production backlog, it would have to be done carefully to avoid a surge in applications once the machine runs again.

Allowing a similar, extended expiry date for all motorists would result in many submitting renewal applications around the same time, flooding the DLCA with applications and causing other potential problems.

Following several driving licence renewal grace period extensions during the Covid-19 pandemic, the DLCA was slammed with applications when the grace period ended.

Not only did this make it difficult for motorists to secure renewal bookings online, but it also exacerbated an already extensive production backlog.

As of August 2021, the DLCA had a production backlog of around 1.2 million cards. However, things worsened when the driving licence printing machine broke down in November 2021.

It took a long time to repair, primarily because it had to be sent to Germany for repairs. This resulted in a backlog of around 2.1 million cards by March 2022.