More time to fail

The South African transport department announced on Monday that learner’s licences will now be valid for two years instead of the previous 18 months.
The department also saw fit to extend testing hours for driver’s licences to 5pm on Saturdays and from 7am until 1pm on Sundays.

All of which should be great news. After all, the process for acquiring your driver’s licence in this country is renowned for its incredible inefficiency.

Well, I’m of the opinion that these latest announcements are actually rubbish and an admission of a serious fault.
The transport department is in fact saying that the service they’re currently offering is so poor that 18 months is too little time to get your driver’s licence and that you need at least two years - factoring in a few laughable failures along the way - to get that plastic card with an awful black and white image of you plucked on it.

These new time extensions don’t address the fundamental issues pertaining to getting your licence. The primary one is K53, the “defensive-orientated” style of driving that we’re all taught and that’s apparently the safest.
It is nothing more than a style of driving designed to make you fail. Checking blind spots every 8 seconds, reversing like a fool while surrounded by poles, pulling up your handbrake constantly and generally frustrating the hell out of all other drivers doesn’t constitute safe driving.

It is obvious that everyone stops using K53 immediately when they pass their drivers test. I failed twice and the first time, the vastly overweight cop that angrily failed me and drove me back to the testing centre certainly didn’t do his observations.

Consider this; I have 3 close friends who have all fallen victim to our driver testing system. Add me to the equation and we’ve failed a combined 14 times. Driving lessons are now something like R150 each. It’s R100 just to apply for your test if memory serves me correctly.
My point is that we’ve spent a revolting amount of money desperately trying to get our licences. How less fortunate people without the luxury of repeatedly trying over and over again are able to cope is beyond me.

Driving tests need to be adjusted to in fact be a test of basic driving skill and the ability to control a vehicle rather than a series of convoluted procedures and rules one has to follow.

Until then, no amount of misguiding government talk will stop me from believing that more time to fail your driver’s licence is really all we’ve been offered.