---
title: "A 10-year driving licence makes sense, a 10-year eye test gap does not"
description: "South Africa can reduce queues and administrative costs without losing an important opportunity to identify changes in drivers’ vision. The two objectives can coexist if the new system is designed with the right safeguards."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "VISION SNAG OP-ED"
author: "Carel Masemola, Haseena Majid and Nombuso Mathe"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/carel-masemola-haseena-majid-and-nombuso-mathe/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-08-06-a-10-year-driving-licence-makes-sense-a-10-year-eye-test-gap-does-not/"
published: "2026-08-06T00:01:30"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 1274
---

# A 10-year driving licence makes sense, a 10-year eye test gap does not

> South Africa can reduce queues and administrative costs without losing an important opportunity to identify changes in drivers’ vision. The two objectives can coexist if the new system is designed with the right safeguards.

By Carel Masemola, Haseena Majid and Nombuso Mathe · Published 6 August 2026, 02:01 SAST

## Key points
- Cabinet has backed extending light-vehicle driving licence cards from five to 10 years (A, A1, B, EB) to cut queues and admin burden, but the change still needs legislative approval.
- Concern: five-year renewals currently force a basic eyesight check; a 10-year gap risks drivers going a decade without screening while refractive changes, cataract, glaucoma or diabetic eye disease can develop unnoticed – vision impairment is a plausible, modifiable crash risk.
- Fixable: separate administrative validity from health surveillance – introduce periodic or age-/risk-based vision checks, allow clinician-initiated reviews and avoid relying on self‑identification (models exist in NSW, NZ, UK).
- Before reform, government should audit existing screening data, consult eye health and road safety experts, and build affordable, equitable safeguards so efficiency gains don’t erode public safety or access to care.

## Content

![Image](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/gNZKiZPF4-YQh91yyhtjMukrWaY=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/label-Op-Ed.jpg)

Cabinet has approved extending the validity of driving licence cards from five to 10 years for light motor vehicle licence codes A, A1, B and EB. The change still requires legislative amendments before it takes effect. The government’s reasoning is understandable: fewer renewals should ease pressure on licensing centres, reduce the frequency with which motorists must return and improve administrative efficiency.

There is, however, another part of the current system that deserves attention before the five-year cycle disappears. Every licence renewal currently brings a driver into contact with a mandatory eyesight assessment. The test is limited. It assesses whether a driver meets minimum visual acuity and visual-field requirements and is not a comprehensive eye examination. The five-year renewal cycle has created an incidental access point to vision screening for millions of South Africans.

Extending the validity of the card could extend the period between these mandatory assessments from five years to as long as a decade unless another mechanism is retained. This is where an administrative decision intersects with public health. Vision does not remain static for 10 years. Refractive error can change. Cataract, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and other eye conditions can develop or progress. Systemic conditions such as diabetes can affect vision, and people may be unaware that they have the disease, may know about it but have difficulty controlling it, or may develop complications before substantial changes in vision are noticed.

The issue extends beyond eye disease. Uncorrected or undercorrected myopia and astigmatism can affect distance vision even in otherwise healthy people. A driver who met the required standard several years earlier may be using an outdated prescription or may have experienced gradual visual change without recognising how much their functional vision has deteriorated.

This matters on the road. Driving requires adequate visual acuity and visual fields, alongside other aspects of visual function such as contrast sensitivity. A [systematic review](https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/publications/vision-impairment-and-traffic-safety-outcomes-in-low-income-and-m/?utm_source=chatgpt.com) published in The Lancet Global Health examining low- and middle-income countries found that central visual-acuity impairment was associated with a 46% greater risk of road traffic crashes. The evidence has important limitations: the studies were observational, heterogeneous and could not adequately separate vision from factors such as age, health, driving exposure, fatigue, alcohol use and road conditions. We should not claim that extending licence validity will increase crashes. We should recognise that impaired vision is a plausible, modifiable road-safety risk that deserves consideration when changing the screening interval.

South Africa also carries a substantial burden of chronic disease. The International Diabetes Federation estimated that about 2.3 million South African adults aged 20 to 79 were living with diabetes in 2024. Progressive eye diseases such as glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and cataract often develop insidiously, with patients adapting to gradual visual decline and remaining unaware that they no longer meet the visual requirements for safe driving. This is of particular relevance in South Africa, where large-scale screening programmes and initiatives for these ocular noncommunicable diseases remain limited.

A policy built around self-identification creates another problem: it assumes that people will recognise deterioration and then obtain care. That cannot be taken for granted. A person may not know that their vision has changed. Someone who knows that they have diabetes may have difficulty keeping it controlled. A driver may recognise blurred vision but be unable to afford an examination or spectacles, live far from an appropriate service, face a long public-sector referral pathway, or continue driving because their livelihood and family responsibilities depend on it. Access to eye care remains unequal in South Africa. Removing or reducing an existing screening contact therefore has different implications for someone who receives regular private eye examinations and someone whose next encounter with vision screening may otherwise have been their licence renewal.

This does not mean South Africa should abandon the 10-year licence. It means that the validity of the card and the assessment of visual fitness do not have to follow the same timetable. Other countries already make this distinction. New South Wales provides a particularly useful example. Eligible drivers aged 21 to 44 can receive a 10-year licence, while drivers aged 45 and older continue to undergo an eyesight test every five years. New Zealand generally issues licences for up to 10 years but introduces medical certification and shorter renewal periods for older drivers. Britain similarly uses 10-year photocard licences while introducing shorter renewal cycles from age 70, and in addition, when the required driving standards are not met, optometrists and ophthalmologists are able to initiate processes that may result in a review by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency.

These systems are not templates that South Africa should copy without considering our own context. They demonstrate an important policy principle: administrative validity can be separated from health surveillance.

South Africa could retain the convenience of a 10-year licence while considering proportionate periodic vision reassessment, with additional risk-based review where clinically justified, thus ensuring safeguarding. The details require consultation with transport authorities, eye health professionals, public health specialists, road safety experts and communities. Any system must also consider affordability and access so that additional requirements do not become another barrier to mobility.

There is also an opportunity to improve the information already generated by the licensing system. Drivers can currently undergo the eyesight test at a licensing centre or submit results from an optometrist. Before changing the frequency of this contact, the government should establish what these screening encounters have already taught us. How many people fail the initial screen? How many subsequently meet the standard with correction? What proportion require a corrective-lens restriction? Are these data analysed by age and geography? Are they used to inform road safety planning or eye health services? If those answers are already available, they should help inform implementation. If they are not, the reform provides an opportunity to build a better evidence system.

The World Health Assembly has already set a global target of increasing effective refractive-error coverage by 40 percentage points by 2030. Transport policy does not carry responsibility for achieving that target, but government decisions should recognise where different systems intersect.

Reducing queues, administrative costs and unnecessary bureaucracy is good public policy. Good governance also requires us to identify the other functions embedded in the system we are changing. South Africa’s five-year licence renewal cycle has inadvertently created a recurring pathway to vision screening. If we choose to change that pathway, we should understand what we are losing, decide what needs to be preserved and put the necessary safeguards in place before the gap appears.

A 10-year driving licence can make administrative sense. It should not mean that a driver can go 10 years without another opportunity for their visual fitness to be assessed, and it should not shift reliance onto self-recognition of visual decline. This decision offers an opportunity to build practical guardrails around reform and to embed eye health into policy decisions that shape the wider social determinants of health and South Africa’s progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Effective public administration depends on recognising these connections across sectors and designing small, deliberate interventions at the points where systems intersect. These micro-level actions are how efficiency gains become safer systems and contribute to stronger population-level outcomes. **DM**

*Dr Carel Masemola is a Tekano Fellow for Health Equity and Social Justice and lecturer and undergraduate programme coordinator in the Department of Optometry at the University of the Free State. Dr Haseena Majid is a Global Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity and Social Justice, a postdoctoral researcher in public governance at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Dr Nombuso Mathe is an acting head of department and chief specialist ophthalmologist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the KwaZulu-Natal health department.*