From Autoopinion, in Autodealer North West, week 14, 2010, p. 8:
Mark Holdsworth
2010-03-29
How many people actually know how they are going to be affected by the introduction of new number plates?
This question has been plaguing me, and numerous others, for the last few weeks. There are also several and varied other questions posed regarding this new system.
To give a bit of background: the new number plates are made of aluminium rather than plastic and have a radio frequency identification tag that links the vehicle to its owner and manufacturer.
The new numbering system will consist of a series of two letters, two numbers and two letters, ending with the letters “GP”.
Government’s reasons for implementing the new system include crime prevention and the fact that the current series of number plates is due to run out before June this year at which point, should the new system not be in place, no new cars will be able to be registered.
Currently, it’s estimated that one in every six number plates affixed to vehicles in Gauteng are fake. According to Neil Campbell, DA provincial spokesperson, “In Gauteng, on average, 43 000 new numbers are issued per month.
“Assuming that each vehicle needed two plates, 86 000 should have been issued but the average number of plates actually made is 130 000, meaning that 44 000 plates (or at least 22 000 vehicles - as trailers only require one plate) are added to the fleet carrying false plates every month.”
However, the implementation of these new number plates has been delayed since 2007 and many believe that government has left this implementation too late. According to Campbell, as of March 15, no tenders for production of these new number plates had been called for, or awarded, and yet government insists the new system be implemented as of April 1.
However, there are more pressing concerns for Gauteng motorists at large. Campbell is also quoted as saying, “A set of [number] plates will cost approximately R360 and will need to be renewed every five years - apparently because they fade and cannot be picked up by speed cameras after five years, which is indicative of poor quality plates”.
Sounds a lot like these number plates are less about crime prevention and open road-tolling enablement and more about continued revenue flow from speed trapping - a sentiment shared by Rob Handfield-Jones, managing director of driving skills company, Driving.co.za. “South African statistics show that six times as many speed fines are issued per year now as in 1998. One should expect this would have made the roads safer. Actually, fatality risk on our roads has doubled since 1998.
“Relying on speed control for safer roads is a failed experiment which must be abandoned in favour of increased prosecution of moving violations,” stated Handfield-Jones. “The extent to which other offences have been ignored in favour of lucrative speeding prosecutions is proven by statistics released by the RTMC: for every hundred thousand speeding fines issued in Johannesburg, only 240 are issued for disobeying the rules of the road. 98.94% of all fines issued in Johannesburg are for speeding.
“I have in the past called for a five-yearly inspection of number plates with condition-based replacement. This is an acceptable contribution to law enforcement and ensures any non-compliant plates are replaced. “Mandatory five-yearly replacement to support a failed speed trapping policy is absolutely unacceptable and I call on citizens to reject this costly and unnecessary legislation by lobbying their public representatives to oppose it in the Gauteng legislature,” he concluded.
However, the problem goes even deeper than that. The simple fact of the matter is that between renewing your vehicle licence every year (approximately R300) and renewing your driver’s licence (R165) and licence plate (R360) every five years, the average Gauteng motorist will be forking out over R2 000 over the course of five years, just to keep themselves mobile.
All of this before one takes into account the cost of fuel and the open road tolling due to be implemented on Gauteng freeways in the near future - which is another subject altogether.
I think Neil Campbell summed it up accurately when he stated before the provincial legislature that, “While the introduction of these ‘i’ plates represents a genuine attempt to overcome the huge problem of number plate cloning, government has, as usual, found an extremely costly possible solution and proceeded with undue haste towards regulation”.
Source: Autodealer
