The grace period for the renewal of driving licences comes to an end today, dodging calls from the Automobile Association (AA) for Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula to further extend the deadline.
On Wednesday, the AA appealed to Mbalula to make a provision for a longer renewal period, arguing that the recent problems with the broken licence card machine, challenges faced by the licensing centres, and online booking made it impossible for most drivers to meet the March 31 deadline.
Mbalula previously extended expired licences due to delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic which meant motorists could not visit licensing centres. This grace period covered all documents which expired in the period between March 26 2020 and August 31 2021.
“This leaves hundreds of thousands of drivers without the necessary documents to be on the road legally,” said the AA.
“Unless traffic law enforcement understands these issues and find a suitable way of addressing them, we may find a massive spike in the number of traffic fines issued to motorists in the next couple of weeks and months.”
The association further said the motorists could find their insurances negatively impacted if they were to be involved in crashes.
It explained further: “Insurers may repudiate claims if motorists are driving with expired licences. Although those who have applied for new licences are covered through an extension of the validity of their licences, there are still many drivers who have not applied for renewed licences for various reasons beyond their control.
“Government’s priority should be to provide an environment conducive to renewing these documents, and to provide the necessary back-up systems to ensure timely production and delivery.
“Extending the deadline will indicate a willingness by government to deal effectively with the current backlogs and will show that it understands the limitations of its current structures.”
The AA added that along with extending the deadline, government must urgently finalise plans to extend the validity period of driving licences from five to 10 years.
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