M Fransman: Institute of Licence Officials of Southern Africa

18 April 2007

Members of the institute
Honoured guests
Ladies and gentlemen

I would like to offer all of you, especially those of you who have come from
far and wide, the warmest of Western Cape welcomes.

And with this greeting comes a wish that all your deliberations over the
next three days will lead to the laying of a solid foundation, a foundation
from which will spring licensing strategies, policies and plans that will take
motoring and with it our country to bold new levels.

I don't need to remind you of the challenges our road transport system
faces. We have just about wrapped up another Arrive Alive campaign, in which
fatality figures once again suggest that we still have some way to go to
reverse the depressingly familiar tale of carnage on our roads.

"Why, why?" We will lament as we always do, until the next holiday period.
And it would be easy just to go through the motions.

But we dare not.

Of course we are not alone in struggling to cope with a far too high road
death toll.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Bank stress that globally
road crashes is the second leading cause of death among young people aged 5 to
29 years and the third leading cause of death among people aged 30 to 44
years.

Road crashes kill 1,2 million people every year and injure or disable
between 20 million and 50 million more.

These are frightening figures and on the face of it, we appear to be
fighting a losing battle.

But the truth is we cannot afford to give up on our quest to find solutions.
We need to brush aside the disappointments. We need to take the blows, rise up
if they knock us down and keep on searching for ways to make our roads safe for
all our people.

As we broaden our hunt for answers, we also need to ask questions of
ourselves. And for me, the ugly face of corruption is shaping up as a crucial
issue.

Recently, I had the sad task or ordering a number of investigations into
allegations of corruption at a number of our licensing centres in the Western
Cape.

Many of those allegations have indeed been corroborated and indications are
that more will be confirmed in the coming weeks.

My own view and I am sure that you will concur with me, is that we cannot
afford to turn our eyes away and close our ears to corruption in our licensing
centres.

Every driver on our roads must have passed a learner driver's test, followed
by a driving test and every vehicle must have been thoroughly tested before
being allowed on our roads.

That is the bottom line.

There must be dire consequences for those who choose to get behind the wheel
of a motor vehicle by dishonest means.

Anyone who buys a licence or a certificate of roadworthiness and any
official who stoops so low as to sell these documents to members of the public
must be hunted down and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

I am convinced that many of the fatalities on our roads are caused by people
with "bought" driving licences or certificates of roadworthiness for their
motorcars.

I believe that when fatalities or serious injuries occur on our roads
because of corruption, those who have made themselves guilty of these
despicable practices should be tracked down, arrested and charged with murder
or attempted murder (whatever is appropriate) in addition to charges of
corruption.

Ladies and gentlemen, over the past few months a new word has crept into the
everyday conversations of South Africans, "2010."

It's a funny word.

In Cape Town, in particular, it is a word that has sparked bitter debate and
even Supreme Court action specifically over the location of the World Cup
stadium in the suburb of Green Point.

The debate over the stadium has a "bittereinder" versus "hensopper" ring
about it. The "bittereinders" and they are a tiny group but with enough funds
to institute civil actions in the Supreme Court, are opposing the construction
on the stadium on environmental grounds, even though Tasneem Essop, the MEC for
Environmental Affairs has given the go ahead for construction after a rigorous
examination of all the pros and cons of the site that was proposed for the
stadium.

They just seem unable to take "yes" for an answer.

Many of the objectors appear to have been around for a while. Strangely
enough, I can't remember any of them (those whose names have appeared in the
media) having mustered the same passion to oppose the eviction of black people
from this very Green Point during the height of the apartheid era.

I believe that the building of the stadium must and indeed will go ahead.
And I am convinced, in fact, I know, following a survey that the provincial
Department of Transport and Public Works commissioned that the majority of
residents of the Western Cape want to be part of what has become the world's
greatest sporting extravaganza.

Whenever I hear the word "2010" being bandied about my reaction is to say,
"Bring it on, but we as guardians of the province's transport and public works
system, must do better!"

And we will.

Of course, I am well aware too that intent means nothing if it is not
followed by action.

In preparing this speech and while thinking about the role of the ILO in
relation to "2010," I took a journey back in time to find out what your
licensing predecessors did when facing challenges at the start of the 20th
century.

Remember, in the early 1900s, the big challenge was the very concept of
motorcar travel itself.

So I would like to invite you to come with me on a little drive to a time
when cars were fewer, petrol cheaper and speed limits appreciably lower than
they are today.

Did you know that in the early years of motoring, the official examiner of
learner drivers in the smaller towns and dorpies was the first man to have
owned a motorcar (and please, I'm not being sexist here, the early drivers were
always men).

And here's something else, municipalities made their own traffic laws. I
could not track down any information about what happened in Cape Town in the
early years of last century but managed to dig up something about Potchefstroom
(of all places), in present day North West province. Here, the speed limit was
15 miles per hour [or just over 24 kilometres per hour (kph) in good old metric
measurement].

And perhaps those drivers who like to put our nerves on edge by screeching
around corners should consider this, Potchefstroom's authorities insisted that
corners had to be negotiated at seven miles per hour (11,3 kph).

In Heidelberg, in present day Gauteng, drivers could open their throttles to
attain a speed of 15 miles per hour as long as they did not go whizzing around
at this speed closer than three kilometres from the general post office.

In other towns, drivers were allowed to go at a maximum speed of 20 mph
(32,2kph), but had to slow down to 12 mph (19,3kph) when approaching groups of
people or animals.

According to the 'Reader's Digest' publication, South Africa's Yesterdays,
driver's licences were issued on ordinary trader's licences, the magistrate's
clerk would fill in after 'to carry on the business, trade or profession of'
the words "to drive motor cars."

Drivers could drive on either side of the road, except when approaching an
oncoming vehicle in which case they had to move to the left.

What did it cost to be "legal behind the wheel?"

Around 1914, a learner's licence cost five shillings and a driving licence
10 shillings.

In the then Transvaal (present day Gauteng), a motor vehicle licence cost
and it had to be renewed every year. Even then, our officials were already
proving to be pretty sharp in their quest to find other sources of revenue;
drivers also had to pay one shilling per 100 pounds (45,4kg) of motor car as
well as six pence per horsepower.

As the number of cars increased, so did the need for legislation.

The first provincial ordinances, in 1914, were aimed at any vehicle which
was propelled by mechanical means.

The 1920s saw a massive increase in the number of cars on South African
roads. In 1920 24 064 cars were registered to be on South African roads; by
1928 this figure had shot up to 113 360.

And here's something for those drivers who think they can fly through our
rural areas, along our top quality national roads.

A motorist who could enjoy a clear run of even a dozen kilometres in the
countryside would have considered himself extremely fortunate. Farms were
divided into grazing areas, pens, fields and whenever the road passed from one
enclosure to the next there was what drivers referred to as "the gate, that
object of hate."

In one recorded instance, a British driver travelling in the Free State,
from Winburg to Bloemfontein a distance of 100 miles complained that he had to
pass through 73 gates.

"Just think of it," he complained, "my car had to be stopped and restarted
140 times that day."

Those who failed to shut a farm gate, whether or not they found it open,
could be sentenced to a fine of up to 10 shillings or several days in jail.

In 1922, the "Handbook of the Port Elizabeth Automobile Club" suggested that
drivers take along "pennies for gates" in addition to other essentials such as
distilled water, spring repair clamps, rimes, ropes and chains when going on
trips through the countryside.

Farm children had quickly cottoned onto the financial possibilities of gate
opening. At a penny a gate, there were some easy picking to be made.

During the depression years, white adults also got into the "gate opening"
act.

One final word about the old days, in the early days, petrol and oil were
sold in metal jugs. Later they could buy fuel in wooden crates, each carrying
two 15 litre tins which could be clamped to the running boards of cars.

The cost 1 to 10 shillings per crate.

Let us go back to the present.

I stressed earlier in this address the need to tackle corruption.

A number of interventions have been put in place or are in the process of
being put in place to tackle various forms of skulduggery that impact on the
way our roads are used.

Chief among these is our new driving licence system which features a credit
card sized driver's licence card containing a digital photograph of the bearer
for ease of identification.

What I like about it is the two dimensional symbol known as PDF417, which
contains detailed information about the licence and the licence owner.

As you know this detailed information is really impressive. Using this
technology, authorities are able to pull detailed information about licence
categories, offences and endorsements as well as personal data pertaining to
the driver (including a digitally compressed photograph of the driver).

The data stored in the PDF417 cannot be fraudulently modified and this means
that the licence holder will always be positively identified. And what is more,
information pertaining to the licence holder can be quickly retrieved.

The credit card sized driving licence, will I believe, go a long way towards
helping to identify (and remove from our roads) the estimated more than one
million drivers who obtained their licences through fraudulent means.

Ladies and gentlemen, the important thing is to cut out fraud in the crucial
few steps prior to the licence been issued at the learner's and driving test
level. And this is where you, as the institute, can play a key role.

Prevention is always better than cure and I would like to see the ILO devise
a system of operation that will be able to hone in on those who may be tempted.
You must find ways to discourage any of your members from falling prey to
dubious offers of financial reward in return for the sale of a licence. I
believe that we will be striking a mighty blow for safety on our roads if we
can close loopholes in this area.

Whenever the cons of 2010 are discussed, two items come to the fore every
time, crime and road safety.

My attitude regarding crime in as far as it may overlap transport is to put
interventions in place that will discourage the commissioning of offences.

This is why I favour the introduction of technology in the area of licences
(as I have already mentioned). I am convinced that when you plant the seeds of
integrity in our transport system, you will reap the rewards of comfort and
safety.

I have also been encouraged by other developments such as the possibility of
motor vehicles being fitted with identifying microdots to discourage theft and
hijackings.

I am convinced that this will become a normal part of any new car and
hopefully of second hand cars too.

Ladies and gentlemen, people will ask "Why does it have to take a World Cup
to make politicians jump and take action to improve the lives of their
citizens, whether this may be in area of fighting crime or in creating a world
class transport system?"

This is a good question, but I believe that we should use the World Cup as a
catalyst.

Take the opportunities and the extra money that comes with our involvement
in 2010 to build facilities and structures that will improve the lives of all
our people.

I believe that the Western Cape Department of Transport is ready to rise to
the challenge of building a world class transport system and I include private
motor vehicle drivers, as well as the drivers of public vehicles such as buses
and taxis in my definition of that system.

I believe that by the time the World Cup is staged in 2010, we will have a
transport system in place that will be both comfortable and safe.

We will leave a transport heritage to the people of this country long after
our World Cup visitors have left, of that I am convinced.

Issued by: Department of Transport and Public Works, Western Cape Provincial
Government
18 April 2007