Red lights for new number plates

Gauteng’s plan to launch new licence plates seems more like a money-making exercise than a real attempt at improving traffic enforcement and crime prevention.

That is according to the civil action group Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) and an experienced road laws expert at Driving.co.za.

The Gauteng Provincial Government launched a six-month pilot of the new “smart” plates on Thursday, 5 June 2025, two and a half years after it first touted its plans for the change.

The plates’ main new features are a scannable QR code for verifying whether the plate is fitted to the correct car and a self-destructing security decal.

Duvenage said that although the QR code and self-destructing decal could help address cloned plates and tampering, the question was whether they were a necessary cost to the public.

He said the bigger problem was that too many vehicles were driving without licence plates, and there was a lack of visible policing to combat this.

“Until this issue is addressed, new license plate system or not, the problem of unidentifiable vehicles will continue,” Duvenage said.

Duvenage also argued that the poor levels of law enforcement in South Africa would result in criminals infiltrating the new system and making duplicate licence plates with the new features.

Driving.co.za managing director Rob Handfield-Jones pointed out that traffic officers with connectivity could already check a car’s details through e-Natis.

“They could just run a vehicle’s VIN number through the system and see what plates it should have on it,” he explained.

However, the issue was that traffic officers often did not have connectivity at the roadside, which rendered the design and features of number plates moot.

“A more effective approach would be to put connectivity into the hands of every officer so that they are better able to validate data which already exists on every vehicle,” he said.

He explained this would not even require a physical licence disc, all traffic officers would need to do is plug in an onboard diagnostics tool.

Major problems with licence plate regime

Duvenage also pointed out that the License Plate Association of SA (Laza) had lodged several allegations about licence plate irregularities which won’t be resolved by the new system, including:

• License plate equipment manufacturers had become “very involved” in license plate production or had shareholdings in license plate producers, which was illegal.
• Apparent collusion and “cartel” control of licence plate production, largely managed by the three “approved” manufacturing equipment suppliers.
• Vehicle dealerships using equipment to produce their own license plates, which is also illegal.

Duvenage said these matters had been raised with the authorities and “little to nothing” had been done to address them.

“If the authorities cannot curb the illegal printing of license plates now, how will they give the public the assurance this won’t continue to happen going forward with the new system?” he asked.

Don’t ask about cost, just pay — Gauteng MEC

Duvenage also said the lack of information on the price of the new number plates was very worrying, especially since there were indications that they could be far more expensive than the current ones.

During the pilot number plate launch event last week, Gauteng’s transport MEC Kedibone Diale-Tlabela refused to field questions about plate costs, arguing that the benefits outweighed the price tag.

“This is a great idea, please get your new number plates. Don’t ask me about the price, just go and do it,” she said.

It is also unclear whether motorists will only have to get new number plates or completely new numbers, which would require re-registration with a new licence disc.

Duvenage said it would be “absolutely ludicrous” to force people to reregister their vehicles with the new system once it is launched.

He said if the new system was implemented, it should be phased in over time, starting with new and used car sales and change of ownership.

Handfield-Jones argued it would be fair to assume that revenue generation was the more reasonable explanation for the introduction of the new plates.

“Authorities and municipalities have flagrantly abused traffic enforcement as a revenue generator,” Handfield-Jones said

“It’s fair to assume the same applies to number plates since the new number plate proposals add nothing of value.”

Duvenage warned if it turned out that money-making was the primary purpose of the project, it would most likely be challenged in court.

“There appears to be a lack of clarity and transparency over too many factors related to this new license plate issue,” Duvenage said.

“If indeed there is an equally secure replacement system that was available at far lower costs to the public, the Gauteng authorities need to explain why they chose the more expensive system.”