{"id":293978,"date":"2019-01-17T11:36:25","date_gmt":"2019-01-17T09:36:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=293978"},"modified":"2019-01-17T11:36:25","modified_gmt":"2019-01-17T09:36:25","slug":"south-africas-massive-drivers-licence-backlog-what-you-need-to-know-if-you-get-pulled-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/293978\/south-africas-massive-drivers-licence-backlog-what-you-need-to-know-if-you-get-pulled-over\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa&#8217;s massive driver&#8217;s licence backlog: what you need to know if you get pulled over"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Minister of Transport, Blade Nzimande, is currently monitoring a contingency plan to recover production time lost during a labour dispute\u00a0with employees who were contracted to the Driving Licence Card Account (DLCA).<\/p>\n<p>According to Nzimande, the dispute occurred during an annual production maintenance period when machines were serviced.<\/p>\n<p>To recover the lost production time, the DLCA has been implementing a contingency plan to adhere to standard production practices and reduce the waiting period for the cards, he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Since July 2018 to December, we have received over 1 million card orders and have printed over 700,000 cards,&#8221; said Nzimande<\/p>\n<p>He added that the current production <strong>backlog sits at 324,000 cards<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These orders have been prioritised to be printed in the next three weeks,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What to do if pulled over<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Nzimande said that the Department of Transport has now issued a directive to provincial and municipal traffic authorities not to penalise motorists who complied with the prescripts of the application and renewal of their driving licences.<\/p>\n<p>Where drivers have already been fined by traffic officers as a result of these delays, they must apply for the revocation of enforcement order through the Road Traffic Infringement Agency (RTIA), he said.<\/p>\n<p>These drivers must:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fill in the form which is downloadable on the <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aarto.gov.za\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">RTIA <\/a><\/strong>website.<\/li>\n<li>The form must then be emailed to revocation@rtia.co.za.<\/li>\n<li>If motorists have any additional questions they can also contact the\u00a0\u00a0RTIA call centre on 086 122 7861.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Who is exempt from fines?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>According to the department, the first category of drivers exempted from fines are those who renewed their driver\u2019s licenses before three months of expiration of their licenses.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The drivers in this category are those who are expected to produce their valid receipt given upon renewal, because at the time of their application their driver\u2019s licenses were still valid or had not expired. This category must not apply for temporary driving licences,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n<p>The second category of drivers exempted from fines are new applicants for driver\u2019s licenses provided they already applied for the temporary driver\u2019s licenses.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This category is automatically required by law to apply for temporary driver\u2019s licenses upon passing their driver\u2019s test. They are not required to reapply for a temporary license if or when their temporary license expires. They are also fully liable for payment for their temporary licenses,&#8221; the department said.<\/p>\n<p>The third category of drivers who are those who applied for their driver\u2019s licences post-expiration. This category is required by law to apply for a temporary driver\u2019s licence.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;However, if the temporary driver\u2019s licences have expired due to the delays on the part of the Department of Transport, they do not have to reapply but must produce their expired temporary licenses when required to do so. They are also fully liable for payment for their temporary licenses,&#8221; the department said.<\/p>\n<p>It added that the general principle is that those whose temporary driver\u2019s licenses have expired need not reapply until they receive their licenses. They must produce their valid or expired temporary licenses on request by traffic officials.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I would like to earnestly apologise to the citizens for the inconvenience they have been subjected to through this ordeal,&#8221; Nzimande said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/293210\/beware-second-hand-vehicle-scam-in-south-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Beware second-hand vehicle scam in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The current production backlog sits at 324,000 cards<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":293982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11119],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-293978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293978"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":293994,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293978\/revisions\/293994"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}