By JASON COLLIE transport reporter
The controversial new driver licensing scheme will be reviewed, although 2.4 million drivers have already switched to the photo licences.
Prime Minister Helen Clark and Transport Minister Mark Gosche will today announce an independent review of how the system is run. It will focus on the treatment of novice, elderly and commercial drivers.
The assessment of the 14-month-old scheme comes after a string of administrative blunders.
Elderly people and commercial drivers have also complained about the higher cost of their licences, and the older motorists are angry that they must renew their licences and get medical clearance every two years after turning 80.
The system was dogged by difficulties from its first day, with huge queues, people failing eye tests but subsequently being passed by their opticians, wrong details on licences, wrong organ-donor details, overcharging and test papers misprinted and withdrawn.
However, the mandatory carrying of the photo licence and tougher penalties have been credited with lowering the road toll and keeping disqualified and unlicensed drivers off the road.
Mr Gosche said the review, to be finished by November, would ask whether drivers were having to jump through too many hoops and if costs were as low as they could be.
"These groups are of particular concern to us, especially the older drivers. The Government is getting the message from older drivers loud and clear. The new licensing system has not been sensitive to their needs."
Age Concern president Dr Margaret Guthrie said her organisation wanted the medical tests for over-80s dropped. Older drivers found the cost of about $109 every two years too much.
"It amounts to age discrimination. You lose quite a bit of your independence without a licence, so this means a tremendous amount to people.
"Age is not the crucial factor - it's the ability to function as a driver."
Protests from taxi, bus and truck drivers forced the National Government, which introduced the regime in May 1999, to backtrack on paying upfront for a five-year licence.
The Bus and Coach Association executive director, John Collyns, said the six-month licensing process was preventing recruitment of staff, while existing drivers were unhappy at having to be vetted every five years by police.
"The whole cause of Stagecoach's lack of drivers in Auckland has been the six-month stand-down, so the minister's announcement is good news. The past year and a half has been an absolute shambles."
National's transport spokesman, Roger Sowry, said that while the new system had brought the road toll down, it was appropriate now to look at fine-tuning.
The new regime also sparked privacy fears over the storing of drivers' photos on a digital database, which led to two legal challenges now before the High Court.
The Land Transport Safety Authority, which administers the scheme, would not comment until the review is officially announced today.
However, spokesman Craig Dowling said last night that the upgrade period for photo licences finished next Sunday, after which anyone caught driving without one would be fined $400.
New inquiry into troubled driving test
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