to tow?
The limitations of the current minimum car licence may come as a surprise if you are about to hitch that caravan
Gavin Foster
Thousands of South Africans who passed driving tests in the past three years are unaware that they are not eligible to tow caravans, speedboats or trailers licensed to carry a load of more than 750kg.
For most of them that’s not a problem right now, but it could become so in a few years time when they have some spare cash for recreation.
Before March 1998 light motor vehicle (Code 08) licence-holders were qualified to tow any trailer they liked, as long as the gross vehicle mass (GVM) did not exceed 3 500kg, and the trailer did not exceed 50% of the weight of the tow vehicle.
With the new legislation that changed. The current minimum car licence, now Code B, limits drivers to towing a trailer with a licensed mass of 750kg or less. For towing anything bigger an EB licence is required, which confers the same rights as the old Code 08. Holders of the Code 08 were automatically upgraded to an EB licence when they converted to the new credit-card licences, but those doing the EB test after March 1998 had to do so with a suitable trailer attached to their car.
So now it’s a few years down the road. You have your Code B licence and you buy a caravan, or a speedboat, or a motorcycle trailer with a licensed mass of more than 750kg. Suddenly you find you’re not licensed to tow it. Do you take a chance anyway, and hit the highway? Most definitely not.
“If you’re driving without a licence the least of your problems is being stopped by a traffic cop,” says legal consultant Alta Swanepoel, who worked for the Department of Transport during the licence switch-over period.
“About the most common query I get is from insurance companies, wanting to know whether a driving licence covers a particular class of vehicle. If you’re driving a vehicle for which you do not have a licence, you would be considered uninsured, even if the accident was the other party’s fault.”
Picture this. You’re in your forties, and have had your licence for decades. On your way to the coast for the holidays, towing your speedboat or caravan, you get tired, so you ask your son, a newly qualified car driver, to take the wheel for a while. Another vehicle wipes your entire combination out at an intersection. You lodge your claim, but your insurance company walks away because your son wasn’t legally allowed to tow and is convicted and fined for driving without a licence. Your pleas that you knew no better fall upon deaf ears.
Ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law, but there appears to have been little effort made to inform the public of this enormously significant change in driving legislation.
Even those professionals who should be in the know aren’t. We contacted Jurgens CI, South Africa’s largest caravan manufacturer, and spoke to sales and marketing manager Grant Groen about the changed law.
“To be honest, that’s the first I’ve heard of it,” he said, after taking a look at his own licence. Brad du Chenne, KwaZulu-Natal’s general manager for Insurance Hotline who administers all claims for Auto & General was just as unaware of any change in the status quo, and referred the matter to one of his head office directors, Angelo Haggiyan. He too was ignorant of the changes.
Besides not going to too much trouble to inform the public of the new status quo, the state has also not gone out of its way to streamline the licensing process. One could reasonably expect that a short test to evaluate one’s towing ability would suffice to qualify for an alteration to the class of licence held, but this is not the case. Applicants, whether or not they hold a Code B licence, have to first pass a learner’s test, and then later on a full driving test with heavy trailers hitched on to their vehicles. According to Alta Swanepoel, the rationale behind this is that drivers often lose touch with changes in legislation and the learners’ test ensures that people are kept up to date with changes in road signs, of which there are now more than 800.
The learners’ licence requirement could lead to a scenario even sillier than we’ve come to expect from our lawmakers. As there are only three classes of learners’ licence for motorcycles, light motor vehicles, and heavy vehicles (over 16 tons) the learner driver can practice driving with or without a trailer or caravan.
When your son takes control of your car and caravan while you doze off in the passenger seat he’s legal and your insurance is valid, as long as he’s driving on a learner’s licence. But the minute he qualifies for his Code B light motor vehicle licence he’s not he has to apply for another identical learners. Is that logical?
But it seems that where road safety’s concerned the rules are only for the motorists. There’s a serious flaw in the whole examination process in that many test centres, especially in the Free State, don’t comply with the minimum standards prescribed by law, and are thus operating illegally.
The Department of Transport has allocated millions of rands to allow inspectors to evaluate testing centres and upgrade those that are below scratch, but in the meantime it’s business as usual. And things are likely to get busier, with all those people who’re going to come back for second learners’ and driving licences in a few years time.