New licences on the cards
New licences on the cards
Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula has announced the introduction of new driver’s licence cards, which will be piloted from November next year until March 2024.
Government has been onner druk to introduce licence cards with a 10-year validity period, while it has been revealed there are more than a million illegal drivers on the country’s roads.
Mbalula said the new cards were more secure, reports IOL.
“I am pleased to announce that Cabinet has approved the replacement of the current driving licence card with a new card with more secure design features and will comply with the international driving licence standard,” he said on Saturday.
“The current driving licence card was introduced in 1998 and the production equipment was procured in the same year. The technology has become obsolete.”
Mbalula said the equipment used to produce the current driver’s licence cards would be decommissioned on 1 April, 2024.
He said there would be a five-year transition period between the old driver’s licence cards and the new ones.
Mbalula also said more than 1.2 million SA motorists hadn’t renewed their driver’s licences, with 67% of those between the ages of 25 and 50 years, 15% between the 50-60, and 17% over 60.
He said the implications of this was that there were more than a million drivers driving illegally.
He said officers would act harshly against motorists with expired driver’s licences.
Mbalula also said the backlog which had been caused during lockdown had been cleared.
He added that the department had managed to reduce waiting periods to 10 working days from a high of 58 working days during that same period.