Progress in online driver licences

The New Zealand Transport Agency says it has drafted a rule change that would allow people to renew driver licences online.

The NZTA said it was ready to begin public consultations on the change and would discuss the timings for those consultations with the Government.

At the moment, drivers need to front up at an AA store or a branch of Vehicle Testing NZ to renew their licence. The possibility of allowing online renewals has been discussed since 2014, but sources indicated that expected progress was not made last year because not all ministers in the National government were fully on board with the idea.

Allowing online renewals would appear to necessitate doing away with eye tests which are currently part of the renewal process. The Ministry of Transport has previously suggested a one-off vision test for drivers when people first apply for a licence, and that people would simply have to declare they could see properly when renewing them.

A discussion paper released by the ministry in 2016 said the main benefit of allowing online renewals would come from reducing the time people had to spend travelling to an agent to get their licence renewed.

NZTA told Transport Minister Phil Twyford in a briefing document that there was ‘‘considerable evidence that repeated vision testing does not have significant safety benefits’’.

Allowing online renewals was consistent with the Government’s goal of improving public services, it said.

NZTA spokeswoman Frances Adank said the agency could not immediately comment on how long it might take to put the technology in place.

AA spokesman Dylan Thomsen said surveys showed its members liked the prospect of going online to renew their licences, but also believed eye tests were ‘‘a really good thing’’ and were a nervous about taking that requirement away.

The AA made money by acting as an agent for licence renewals, but Thomsen said it put aside its commercial interests when lobbying and it was too early to say what it might advocate for.

‘‘It is ‘the way of the world’ that things have moved online, and you are able to renew your passport online.

‘‘So I think it is very likely some form of being able to renew your driver licence online is likely at some stage.’’

But Thomsen said it was difficult to see how people’s eyesight could be tested online even if the technology existed.

‘‘How would you verify that the person doing the test was the actual person renewing the licence? It is quite a challenging issue.’’

But he believed there might be some middle ground, saying some people would still want to renew their licences in person.