Driving schools fight tooth and nail against new online licence booking system

A frustrated motorist has described how he was unable to renew his driver’s licence due to a violent protest by driving school owners, which has subsequently resulted in the shutting of licencing centres in Gauteng.

For the safety of workers and infrastructure, the City of Johannesburg, Tshwane, and Ekurhuleni have opted to close several centres, after a number of licencing offices were trashed, staff intimidated, and visitors attacked.

The protest which is in its second week was sparked by the introduction of the new online booking system, which the driving school owners said was unusable.

But Ekurhuleni business analyst James Durieux said he used the system to book an appointment to renew his drivers’ license and was allocated a slot for this past Monday, but was turned away at the local office because of the protest.

“I had not a single problem with the online system. In fact it is the driving school owners who prevented me from getting this service. It is insane. We as law abiding citizens are being held at ransom by the driving school owners. I just want to get my licence and abide by the law,” he said.

Durieux,55, of Edenvale on the East Rand, said he went again on Wednesday, but after waiting in a queue for almost an hour, they were told the offices were closed because of the protest.

He repeated the process on Thursday, and now he fears his appointment slot, which is valid for ten days, will expire unused by next Friday.

What upset Durieux most is that there was no telephone number to call and check whether the offices are still closed or not.

“At the very least they can send e-mails to alert us to the disruption of services so that we do not have to wait there only to be told they were closed. What I also do not understand is how could the protesters disrupt services and intimidate people when there are private security guards to control access. Offices of the Ekurhuleni metro police are just nearby, but hooligans are able to do as they please,” he said.

Unions call for protection of members

In Soshanguve the protesting driving school owners surrounded the local licensing centre and refused to allow anyone inside, with the SA Municipal Workers Union calling for the protection of their members.

The union said it was disturbed by the attack on municipal workers by community members and driving school owners in Shoshanguve.

“Over the past days workers have been barred from accessing their offices by driving school personnel in and around Tshwane. In some instances, workers were taken out of their offices and some lost their belongings,” the union’s Tshwane regional secretary, Mpho Tladinyane, said.

He said they were hopeful that the meeting planned for Monday between the Department of Transport and National Driving School Association of South Africa (NDSASA) will end the impasse.

“In the interim, SAMWU calls on the Department of Transport and driving school association to agree on a dual system of both walk-ins and online to cater for various constituencies,” Tladinyane said.

The Tshwane metro is in the process of applying for a court interdict against the protesting NDSASA members to stop them from disrupting operations.

“We will not tolerate lawlessness in Tshwane. Protesting driving schools should not be allowed to hold customers for ransom,” Dikeledi Selowa, Tshwane MMC for Roads and Transport City of Tshwane, said.

System ‘threatens livelihoods’

Earlier this week, driving schools owners told The Citizen that their grievance with the Road Traffic Management Corporation’s (RTMC) new online licence booking system was driven by fears that the system will elbow them out of business and ultimately obliterate the entire industry.

The National Driving School Association of South Africa (NDSASA) promised to fight tooth and nail against the system being fully implemented, even if it meant shutting down all licensing centres in Gauteng to protect their business interests.

Spokesperson Moss Letsholo said they were not thugs and rubbished criticism that they were holding the public at ransom to protect their private business interests.

“It is true that the system is taking over our business. Anyone would be aggrieved; we accept. We have every right to be aggrieved. We are not holding any at ransom to protect our interest. We are running a business and government has to create enabling environment for small businesses, not take it away,” he charged.

Letsholo explained that as driving school owners, their business was underpinned by them able to do bookings on behalf of clients who could not do so themselves for various reasons.

He said their other income stream was them taking applicants through class to prepare them for tests and then charging them to use their vehicles for the drivers’ licence test.

“The online system will take this all away from us because RTMC already has vehicles for this purpose. Next in the pipeline is the use of a drivers’ simulator which every driving school would be required to have. How many driving schools will be able to afford a simulator?” Letsholo said.

He said they were not against innovation but that the RTMC did not consult the public and stakeholders such as driving schools on the roll out of the system.

Scrap the system and run a pilot phase

Letsholo said their suggestion to break the impasse was that the system be scrapped and a manual booking system be re-instated while the system still being tested.

“Take the system back on the test server which will allow us, the public to test and play around with it, and then give input before rolling it out,” he said.

Boksburg driving school owner Danny Geers said all they were asking for was a fair and user-friendly system as well as the retention of the manual walk-in service for those without access to online facilities.

• siphom@citizen.co.za