South Africa’s road death toll is a national crisis, and alcohol plays a well-documented part in it. Any measure that genuinely reduces drunk driving deserves support. The question is whether the measure now on the table does that.
Transport Minister Barbara Creecy has confirmed that government is pursuing amendments to Section 65 of the National Road Traffic Act 93 of 1996 to move to a 0% alcohol policy. The permissible blood-alcohol limit would drop from 0.05g per 100ml to zero, and the permissible breath-alcohol limit from 0.24mg per 1,000ml to zero. The intention is sound. The amendment is not.
The law already covers impaired drivers
Section 65(1) of the Act already makes it an offence to drive on a public road while under the influence of intoxicating liquor. That offence does not depend on a reading. A driver who is impaired at 0.03g can be charged today. The limits in Sections 65(2) and 65(5) do a different job: they set an objective line above which an offence is committed without the need to prove impairment.
The Act is also already calibrated. Professional drivers face a stricter limit of 0.02g. The general limit of 0.05g reflects the scientific evidence on where impairment begins, and no new evidence has displaced it. A zero limit therefore adds nothing against the impaired driver, who is already covered. It only adds a new class of offender: the driver who is not impaired at all.
The spittoon problem
This class is larger than it sounds. Across South Africa’s liquor industry, tasting is part of the job. Brewers taste every batch. Distillers assess spirits off the still and throughout maturation. Winemakers work through dozens of tank and barrel samples during harvest. Quality-control panels, sommeliers, brand ambassadors, buyers and distributors’ representatives do the same, often at several sites in a day.
Professionals taste and spit. Even so, a small amount of alcohol is absorbed through the lining of the mouth. Under the current limit, a professional who tastes responsibly stays within the law and is fit to drive. Under a zero limit, the same person could register a reading on the way home and face a criminal charge for doing their job.
Competitions show the problem most clearly. South Africa hosts internationally respected competitions for wine, brandy, spirits and beer, where local and foreign judges assess large numbers of entries in a day. Well-run competitions already test judges before they leave. At zero, that protocol becomes meaningless: no judge could drive home.
“Then don’t drive”
The obvious reply is that tasters should not drive. But much of this work happens on farms, at distilleries and at breweries far from reliable public transport. A dedicated driver for every tasting appointment is a cost which large producers can absorb and small ones cannot. The burden falls hardest on craft brewers, small distillers and independent producers, the businesses the economy can least afford to lose.
The effect reaches beyond the industry. Some over-the-counter medicines and mouthwashes contain alcohol. A law that can turn someone using cough syrup as directed into an offender will struggle to keep public respect, and a law without respect is harder to enforce.
The missing ingredient
As lawyers who work with the liquor industry every day, we see the gap between what the law says and what happens on the road. The AA’s CEO, Bobby Ramagwede, has made the same point: without real enforcement, the limit makes little difference, and countries with zero-tolerance laws may owe their results to visible policing rather than to the number itself.
The drivers who cause the worst crashes are not tasters who spat. They are drivers far above the current limit who do not expect to be stopped. Visible roadblocks, working testing equipment, timely blood results and prosecutions that reach court would do more for road safety than a new number.
A sound law, unenforced
Section 65 is not the problem. It already criminalises impaired driving, sets an evidence-based limit and imposes a stricter one on professional drivers. Changing the number will not change behaviour on the road. Enforcing it will.
Leave Section 65 as it is. Then enforce it.
