Silly excuses for stinging motorists

When it comes to matters of transport, South Africans have been treated like morons for many years by the government.

Generally speaking, the rationalising and use of silly excuses for stinging motorists seems to have been done so that there would be plenty to eat for comrades and their accomplices.

We only have to look at the ruinous Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project and the e-toll system set up to pay for them to see that clearly.

The roads were overpriced and electronic tolling was unnecessary as a means to pay for them because a provincial fuel levy would have been far more efficient.

ALSO READ: Victory over e-tolls: Who’s the moron now, Mr Nazir Alli?

However, lots of people made a lot of money out of those highways and e-tolls. So, one is forced to wonder if money is the motivation behind the government’s digging in its heels on the extension of the validity of driving licence cards.

According to the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), Road Traffic Management Corporation CEO Makhosini Msibi claims cards must be renewed for health reasons.

He argues that many accidents on roads are caused by infectious and other diseases, making regular eye tests crucial.

Outa questions, quite correctly, whether there is any research to back up this assertion. If not, then Msibi is just another one of the ANC’s peddlers of “firepool” stories.

ALSO READ: EFF slams ANC ‘fake victory’ over e-tolls

What many have forgotten is that, in the late 1990s, a world-first “credit card” driving licence, developed locally, was shelved because the contract for the current cards was awarded to one of Schabir Shaik’s companies.

Now, we’re stuck with them – and with the five-year renewal process, which creates more headaches than it solves.

People are not dying on the roads because their licence cards expire. They are dying because there is no training and no law enforcement.

Energy would be better used dealing with those realities.