TRANSPORT-SOUTH AFRICA: Re-establishing a Culture of Obedience on the Road

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Anthony Stoppard

JOHANNESBURG, Mar 17 2003 (IPS) - What should have been a relatively simple bureaucratic exercise – to issue South Africans with a new type of drivers licence – has seemingly turned into a battle of wills between the government and its people.

Five years ago, government announced plans to issue all South Africans with a new, credit-card format, driver’s licence. Over the years, the present South African licensing system has become corrupt, and it is notoriously easy to buy a driver’s licence from traffic officials without having to pass a driver’s test.

South Africa has a horrific road accident rate. More than 500,000 road accidents are recorded in South Africa every year, resulting in more than 10,000 deaths and 300,000 injuries, at a total cost of R12.8 billion (about 1.6 billion U.S. dollars) annually, according to official reports.

Illegal drivers are often involved in these accidents. The idea behind issuing new licences is to clean-up the system and make sure that all those using vehicles on the country’s road are qualified drivers.

But, despite a fairly comprehensive information and publicity campaign and warnings of heavy fines, by the end of February – the deadline for drivers to convert their licences – some 1.2 million South Africans had still not applied for the new documents.

Because many of them rushed to apply for the new licences at the last minute, very long queues formed outside licensing centres, with some drivers camping outside the centre for a number of nights.

Under public pressure, as it became obvious that all those in the increasingly unruly queues would not be processed before the deadline, the acting Minister of Transport, Jeff Radebe, announced a two-month extension of the deadline. ”Statistical data indicates that 79 percent of drivers have converted before the deadline, but it is evident that even with the best of intentions from already overstretched officials, it will not be possible to clear the backlog. This decision, to grant an extension, has been informed by tentative indications that we might slide into a situation of public disorder,” explains Radebe.

He also warns: ”Evidence has shown that citizens wait until the last moment before they comply with legislation. This extension should in no way call for a laissez-faire attitude among those who have not converted their licenses. Government will continue to be vigilant in ensuring compliance with legislation and employ punitive measures where such compliance is lacking.”

Immediately after the announcement at the end of February, the queues outside the licensing centres disappeared – and very worryingly for government – have not come back.

In the wealthy province of Gauteng, where almost half the outstanding applicants live, the numbers of people applying for the new licence dropped dramatically – from about 60,000 to around 4,000 a week – following the postponement of the conversion deadline to the end of April.

To encourage drivers, the Gauteng provincial government has increased the administration charges, for issuing the licences, to those who were putting off applying for the new documents. The new charges came into effect on Mar 17.

”We are civilly a disobedient society,” says a psychologist at the University of the Western Cape, Rafiq Lockhat. He was trying to explain the apparent reluctance of South Africans to participate in an effort to improve the good governance of the country.

”As part of the campaign against apartheid, people were encouraged to break the law and to be disobedient. This behaviour has now taken root in South African society. The system of apartheid is gone but the disobedient behaviour remains,” explains Lockhat.

He also points out that, in many cases, South Africans – as individuals – do not feel that the law applies to them, but rather everybody else in society. Lockhat insists that the only way for civil disobedience to be drummed out of South African society is for laws to be strictly enforced – and for law-breakers to be consistently and persistently punished.

”People are quick to respond to the punishment, but not the threat. Unless laws are enforced and people punished, they will not unlearn civil disobedience,” he explains.

Lockhat warns that by granting an extension to those who did not bother to apply for the new driver’s licence during the past five years, government is sending a message that those who do not abide by the law will always be accommodated. ”This is not helping to re-establish a culture of civil obedience in South Africa,” he says.