Johannesburg, 24 April 2012
African Licence

You are about to embark on your learner’s licence study and you are getting nervous - you know some of the curriculum well, some of it less so, and a few parts are quite alien. How do you study to both understand the curriculum and are able to apply it successfully in the learner’s licence test? 

Creative Colibri, African Licence’s parent company, recommends following its scientifically proven Virtuous Circle of Study:

Step A: Begin with an understanding of your strengths & development areas
Step B: Read the curriculum starting with where you need most development
Step C: Test your comprehension after this study and then repeat the steps again until you are ready for the exam.

In a series of three blog posts, African Licence and Creative Colibri will take you through the Virtuous Circle of Study. Stay tuned for next week’s post, which focuses on Step A: Begin with an understanding of your strengths and development areas. 

your team at africanlicence

Cape Town, 9 April 2012
African Licence

African Licence supports good education initiatives, which includes the Fatal Moves programme launched in KwaZulu-Natal last August with good response from learner’s licence students. 

The objective of Fatal Moves is to illustrate to learner’s licence students and drivers the dangers of poor driving. The programme achieves this by requiring all passing KwaZulu-Natal learner’s licence students a 15-minute educational video on how a set of 14 bad driving behaviours may make the difference between living and dying on South African Roads. 

Ismail Amod and his company Neo Africa, who started the Fatal Moves programme, researched the common causes of serious accidents, collected strong, graphic imagery from accidents, and used this to show how bad driving can change the life of drivers, their friends and families.

The 14 ‘fatal moves’ include: The impact of alcohol and drugs on driving; Aggressive driving, e.g. tailgating or hogging the fast lane; Overloading the vehicle; Speeding; Not using a seatbelt; and many more. Please refer to the Fatal Moves website for the full list of 14 Fatal Moves. 

In addition to reading the Fatal Moves website, the best way to commit to safer driving is to join Imperial on their I-PLEDGE initiative. With I-PLEDGE, you will personally commit to one safer driving behaviour and ensure you always act responsibly to create safer roads for everyone in South Africa.

Cape Town, 8 November 2011
African Licence

African Licence today launched a new South African mobile phone learner’s licence test app. The app enables African Licence users to carry the free African Licence eBook and more than 700 questions in their back pockets. The app web-based application that works on all mobile phones with Blackberry, Android, Apple iOS, Symbian, and Windows Mobile operating systems.

Says Johannesburg-based founder and Chief Marketing Officer Christo Crampton: “This is a major milestone for South African learner’s licence students. This release removes any need for students to buy expensive books or desktop applications, and helps students pass their learners licence test first time by studying at a time and place that is convenient to them.”

The company estimates that nearly 15 million South Africans with a smartphone can carry a version of the free learner’s licence eBook in their pocket. More importantly, African Licence hopes more students that previously couldn’t study for the learners licence due to lack of access to facilities or instructors can now study and get on the road safely and cheaply.

All the existing features of African Licence remains: a free eBook, a dozen mock tests, more than 700 unique questions across the learner’s licence curriculum, and online help should students have questions about the curriculum or learner’s licence test.

For more information, please contact African Licence at http://www.africanlicence.com via the website’s Feedback feature, which is accessible on all pages.

The following article was authored by Romaana Naidoo for the City of Johannesburg website (www.joburg.org.za). All views represents those of the author and the City of Johannesburg website. 

A free ebook has been launched for people to study for their learner’s licence, aimed at improving driver skills. The knock-on effect will be improved safety on the roads.

The new book comes at a time when road safety is in the spotlight. The minister of transport has pledged support for the UN’s Decade of Action campaign and the head of transport in the City is working on setting up a road safety council.

African Licence, a Joburg company, offers the full learner’s licence curriculum, plus images, that is needed to pass the test anywhere in the country.

Founder, Christo Crampton, says: “I am passionate about safe driving and have created a website that provides citizens with free learning material. All they need to do is sign in and get a high quality free ebook, which will teach them safe driving skills.”

In May, a friend of Crampton’s took his driving licence test. “He found the books cumbersome and the online propositions difficult to navigate and expensive relative to what you got. In addition, speaking to students in a test centre queue it was clear that getting learner’s licence lessons from instructors was expensive, as much as R700 for certain courses,” he says.

Website
“Then it hit me: why don’t I put together a user-friendly ebook and learner’s licence practice website that can be accessible by all South Africans from all backgrounds?

“African Licence’s mission is to ‘make all South Africans safe, skilled drivers’ and therefore reduce road accidents and fatalities and make our roads safe,” he says. Approximately 14 000 people are killed each year in road accidents in South Africa.

“To achieve this, we want to make the best content (the high quality ebook with the largest linked database of example questions) accessible to everyone … This means we have high quality content available through different mediums, and it is why we offer online access to our ebook for free.”

Students get in-depth knowledge regarding the basics of driving; controls of a vehicle; rules of the road; road traffic signs, signals and markings; road safety; and motorist’s responsibilities in the event of an accident.

The launch has taken place during the City’s annual Transport Month, held every October. This year the theme is “Connecting people and places”. Crampton says: “The ebook can be accessed with smartphones and … makes it not only unique in South Africa, but unique in open source professional education worldwide.”

eBook
African Licence features a free ebook, complete with illustrations and simple concepts; winning study tips; community interaction; a dozen mock tests; and an additional 700 unique questions which have been designed to prepare students for their learner’s licence exam.

Crampton adds that the website also has a feedback link, which allows people to post questions and ideas, as well as any advice that might be helpful to others.

The South African driving licence test consists of two exams: the theoretical learner’s licence test and the practical driving licence exam. There are three categories of learner’s licence – category one is motor cycles, motor tricycles and quadrucycles; category two is light motor vehicles less than 3 500 kilograms; and category three is all other vehicles.

Once students successfully pass their learner’s licence exam, they need to find a professional driving instructor to help them pass their driving licence test. African Licence also helps in this step, through its iDrive link. iDrive is a quick and easy way to find quality driving schools and instructors.

There are three things to take into account when selecting a driving instructor, namely: make sure the instructor has a valid driving instructor’s certificate, find an instructor based close by, and ensure you can taught in your preferred language. Interview multiple instructors to find the right one.

Coming in the same month, Transport Minister Sibusiso Ndebele, along with ministers of transport from member countries of the Southern African Development Community, pledged his support for the United Nation’s Decade of Action 2011-2020 campaign to improve road safety and decrease the number of fatalities.

Also in the pipeline, is the minister’s plan to implement a requirement that drivers have at least 120 hours of actual driving, with 20 hours of night driving, between getting their learner’s licence and getting their driving licence.