A LOT of people have had their driver’s licenses without proper training to use the car.
This puts a lot of road users in danger as these untrained drivers end up causing accidents.
Tshotsho is the term used for money paid illegally to get a license card and it is rife at informal driving schools where people just pay bribes instead of taking necessary driving lessons to quality for a license.
A driving school’s job is to teach people how to become responsible drivers and teach them to obey road rules, not to assist them to get licenses quick via back doors.
President Cyril Ramaphosa recently signed the National Road Traffic Amendment Bill 2020 into law, which paves the way for a number of new regulations affecting everything from accident response to car inspection, license examination and number plate production.
The new Act instructs driving schools to be registered and graded in order to continue practicing.
Additional offences relating to fraudulent learner and driving license testing have been added.
This means that it won’t be easy to get a license without undergoing proper channels.
The new Act also stipulates more clearly the requirements for suspending or cancelling the registration of driving license and car examiners as well as traffic officers.
The law will disqualify car examiners and traffic officers who are found to have a direct or indirect financial interest in a road transport services business, including through a spouse or partner.
Incident management after accidents will become compulsory under the new law, and emergency services will be obliged to respond immediately to road incidents and render all necessary services as prescribed.
