Countries including Argentina, Kenya, Mexico, and Nigeria all have shorter driver’s licence validity periods than South Africa.
South Africa’s five-year driver’s licence renewal period recently came under the limelight again after CEO of the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC), Makhosini Msibi, confirmed that the validity period will not be extended as previously indicated.
In October 2022, ex-transport minister Fikile Mbalula said that his department was going to Cabinet with a proposal to extend the validity period for driver’s licence cards in the country to eight years.
This was met with much fanfare from the public and civil rights organisations such as AfriForum, the Automobile Association, and the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse, who have long held the belief that the five-year validity period is unconstitutional and a money-making scheme.
However, as time passed and a new minister was put in Mbalula’s position, the Department of Transport (DOT) kept quiet on its plans to introduce the extended validity period.
Then, in August 2023, current transport minister Sindisiwe Chikunga confirmed that her department had yet to take any action in this regard, but that she had put it upon herself to take the proposal to Cabinet before any other proposal that was on her desk at the time.
Fast forward 10 months to June 2024, and the RTMC’s Msibi confirmed to MoneyWeb that the DOT has performed a study to determine if there were “good grounds” for extending the validity period, but that it ultimately decided not to go ahead with the plan.
Msibi said that “in terms of the situation that we find ourselves in South Africa”, the five-year validity period deals “specifically with the health of the driver” – for instance, motorists needing periodic eye exams to verify that their vision is still up to scratch.
Furthermore, he noted that it is not the driver’s licence that expires but rather the card itself. The text on the document must be updated if a driver’s state of health has changed over the five years, which will require the production of a new card.
“We have time to see whether you can still drive or you are still fit to drive. But if you are still a valid driver, it’s only the card that expires,” he said.
Peculiarly, Msibi also said that a number of accidents each year are related to communicable diseases and other diseases, “so it remains critical that we maintain [the current licence validity period] until all these issues have been dealt with.”
TopAuto reached out to the RTMC to request more details surrounding these “diseases” and how they impact the five-year licence validity period, but received no response.
It could be worse
While driver’s licences will be capped at five years in South Africa for the foreseeable future, it could be much worse. There are a number of other countries out there with shorter renewal periods that require motorists to update their cards every one to three years.
In Argentina, the shortest driver’s licences for passenger cars are valid for one year, which are for citizens aged 16 to 17, or those 71 and above.
For Argentinian drivers between 18 and 20 years old, and those between 66 and 70, the validity period is three years; and for everyone else, it’s the same as for South Africa.
Kenya, meanwhile, has a renewal period of either one or three years from the date of issue.
The timeframe is up to the holder of the card, with the cost of the one-year option being significantly more affordable than the three-year one, at KSH650 (R94) versus KSH3,050 (R439).
Mexican driver’s licences are valid for two, three, or five years, depending on the region of issuance.
As for Nigeria, the African nation’s driver’s licences must only be renewed every three or five years.
Again, the price of the renewal determines the validity period, with the three-year licence costing NGN10,000 (R124) and the five-year card NGN15,000 (R186).
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