50 PERCENT INCREASE IN BIKE TEST BOOKINGS

+ Click to Enlarge GET IN LINE: Bookings for motorcycle learner's and driving licence tests in Cape Town have increased by 50 percent in a year but only four of the city's 16 testing stations are set up for motorcycle tests. Image: Cindy Waxa, The Argus

August 18, 2008
By Maureen Marud

If there is a seemingly endless wait for an appointment at the local driving licence test centre, use another one, advises Vernon Little, assistant chief of Cape Town Traffic Services.

Little said: "You can go anywhere in South Africa to do a driving licence test if you have a valid learner's licence. No centre may turn you away because you do not live in the area."

And here are the numbers you'll
need to dial in Cape Town.

Little recently unveiled plans to cut waiting times from the current six-months average to three months for a driving licence test, and two months for a learner's test.

Booking backlogs were caused by various factors, he said, one of them going back five years.

Test stations were inundated early in 2008 by a last-minute rush of drivers trying to meet the five-year deadline for renewing licences they took out in 2003 when the deadline for changing to card licences created a "deluge" of applicants, many of whom were tested at an emergency station in the Athlone stadium.

He added that backlogs had been aggravated by higher fuel prices as more road users turned to motorcycles to save on fuel bills.

"Cape Town's traffic departments have been inundated with a 50 percent increase in bookings for motorcycle learner and driving tests in the past year," he said.

But only four of the city's 16 testing stations are equipped to test for motorcycle licences - and at Gallows Hill in Green point licence tests for motorcycles and heavy motor vehicles are done in the same area but can't be done at the same time because of space restrictions.

Another problem, he said, was that licence applicants were coming to the centres ill-prepared for their tests. For instance, a cracked windscreen or an expired licence disc meant the examiner could not conduct the test in that vehicle.

"We can't take the vehicle out on the road, so that person fails automatically."

The relatively low pass rate of 35 - 40 percent at all the city's stations was partly the fault of driving schools, some of which used unregistered instructors.

"Province has identified the need for all driving schools to be accredited," Little said.

Plans to cut the backlogs included opening new test centres and employing more cashiers, clerks and testing officers.

Little said three new centres opened in 2007 - in Khayelitsha, Joe Gqabi and Ottery - and one in Mitchells Plain was expected to open by November 2008.

A new centre in Fish Hoek, to serve the southern peninsula, would open within the next 24 months.

Other plans included a revamp of the Milnerton and Brackenfell centres, a new test track at Kuils River, an upgraded test track at Bellville and a new centre in Somerset West after the old one was closed. - The Argus