End ripoff testing system and teach driving in schools Duncan

It’s been a long time since I sat my driver’s licence test but it sounds like the current system is a rort and in need of an overhaul.

First of all, it’s a long process, you’ll need hundreds of dollars and if you dare breathe at the wrong time in front of the wrong assessor you’ll be failed.

Another $85, thanks. Get to the back of the queue and pay to try again. It sounds like nothing but a revenue-making scheme. Too many people are failing for such silly, pathetic reasons.

It’s in all of our interests that learner drivers must prove their competence – and a licence is a privilege, not a right. But this week I’ve been flooded with emails from frustrated parents slamming the system.

One father told me his daughter had failed six times. Another that his daughter had been red-carded nine times.

One dad said his son was failed for doing 55kmh downhill in a 50kmh zone.

Another failed for ‘‘overindicating’’, whatever that is. Another said he went 60kmh in a 70kmh zone in the wet to be careful – and was pinged for going too slowly.

One bloke said his son’s car failed for having insufficient tyre tread – but the car had been issued with a new warrant of fitness just a day earlier.

One father said his son failed for waiting too long at a give-way sign and another failed for crossing an imaginary centre line that didn’t exist. The list of stories went on and on.

I was then contacted by a Vehicle Testing New Zealand driving assessor, who agreed too many young people were being failed when they shouldn’t have been.

He told me that if assessors passed too many people they were reviewed, if they failed too many they were also scrutinised. They have targets to hit apparently.

He said they were encouraged to pass about 75 per cent of candidates. So the industry sets out to fail one in four people. That’s a disgrace.

Some nervous teenagers are simply pawns in this farcical little game. At least 10,000 people failed their driver’s licence tests last year on their first try and were forced to sit it again.

Many failed twice, some three times. Four people in New Zealand failed 10 or more times in 2016.

The industry made more than $700,000 extra by failing young drivers last year. That’s a perverse incentive. And it’s got to stop.

Yet, when my deep throat rang me on Thursday, he’d done 12 assessments that day – and failed none of them.

He said he might pass everyone the next day – he didn’t know. And he was probably one of the good guys.

My whistleblower agreed too many assessors in the industry were ‘‘grumpy gits’’: bitter old men who went out of their way to fail people.

My source told me they should not be in the industry as they were too negative and had no people skills. It’s time to put these miserable roadblocks out to pasture.

This approach is so costly. Not just to these people personally, who have to find another $85 each time they fail, but to our overall economy.

We have 90,000 young people doing jack-all in New Zealand right now. They don’t work, they’re not at school or any form of education. I blame this stubbornly high number on many things – including their failure to hold a driver’s licence.

So many of these wayward strugglers can’t and don’t drive. They’ve been failed, some more than once, they’re disillusioned, they’ve walked away, they’re driving illegally or they haven’t got the money to afford it.

Some, of course, will be just plain lazy. But it’s holding them back from getting a job.

Without a licence many will be unemployable.

More than 70 per cent of jobs today require us to have licences, yet just a quarter of beneficiaries aged 18-24 can legally drive.

The solution is simple – it’s time to bring the driver’s licence system into our schools.

Yes, there was a time when it was a parent’s job to teach a teen how to drive but the reality is it can be a stressful saga. Plus you risk adults passing on their bad habits to their kids.

We need to make driverlicensing an option at NCEA level 2 in every secondary school so every pupil who wants it leaves school with at least a restricted licence.

That way these young men and women can drive to the building site on day one to start their apprenticeship. No excuses.

Make it part of the school curriculum – and ensure the people doing the testing don’t have a financial incentive to fail them.

I bet it would have an impact on the economy and see youth unemployment fall.

Already some schools do this. They are light years ahead of others. They know their pupils and they know their needs.

For some teenagers getting a driver’s licence has changed their world – now they have a job.

So let’s get this show on the road. Pronto.