Young drivers in South Africa have a tendency to drive recklessly, which one industry professional suggested may be as a result of local learner’s licence instruction and testing.
Eugene Herbert, the CEO of advanced driver training company MasterDrive, warned that young drivers face a road safety crisis that begins long before they pull out of the driveway for the first time.
He explained that road crashes are the leading cause of death among 15- to 29-year-olds globally, adding that the Road Accident Fund (RAF) reports that 40% of all local road deaths are young people.
Instead, Herbert suggested that due to the tendency among younger drivers to speed and drive recklessly, the way South Africans obtain their licences should be reassessed.
“Passing a K53 test is not the same as being equipped to drive on South African roads,” he declared.
“The test measures procedural compliance, and seldom one’s competence and experience under real-world conditions.”
Because of the way driver training in South Africa is carried out, learner drivers tend to spend months practising on quiet roads and in ideal conditions.
However, they are soon thrust into an environment where they have to navigate highway traffic, aggressive drivers, and poor road conditions with no additional preparation.
This produces licensed drivers, but not experienced ones, and Herbert noted that young drivers are most at risk of a crash within the first month of obtaining their licence.
“When supervised experience is not built into obtaining a licence, new drivers are exposed to unnecessary risk. Inexperience compounds quickly,” he said.
“Misjudgements and an inability to identify hazards are less often because of bad driving but rather a lack of experience.”
To overcome this lack of experience, parents, employers, or any other institution should ensure that young drivers receive adequate training and experience that surpasses legal requirements.
According to Herbert, it is much more effective to teach young drivers why they should be doing certain things while driving instead of just showing them what to do.
Countries South Africa can learn from
Herbert explained that one of the leading causes for the amount of youth road deaths in South Africa boils down to inexperience, a factor that other countries have managed to avoid.
He added that characterising youth as reckless places the burden entirely on individual behaviour.
“Yet, young drivers begin in complex, often dangerous environments with minimal experience,” he said.
“Changing the tragedy that the youth often face on the roads requires that we change what we consider sufficient development of experience.”
There are countries with significantly better road safety statistics that seem to understand this, including:
- France, where learner drivers must complete a minimum of 20 hours of driving lessons with a professional instructor before taking the test.
- Finland and Norway focus on mandatory safety hours. Learners must complete dedicated, multi-hour courses on skid-pan driving (slippery road control) and night driving before getting their licenses.
- Australia has a graduated licensing system that requires learners to log up to 120 hours of supervised driving before progressing.
- Germany requires a specialised curriculum including 12 mandatory driving hours divided into specific scenarios (5 hours on rural roads, 4 hours on the autobahn, and 3 hours of night driving).
- In the United Arab Emirates, if you do not already hold a licence from an approved country, you must register with an official driving school and complete a mandatory curriculum of up to 20 hours of practical training.
While South Africa’s K53 handbook helps guide young drivers away from recklessness and towards safer, more defensive driving, once they hit the road for the first time, much of their training goes out the window.
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