Kelly Annand said the community driver testing officer programme didn't let anyone sit a test that they thought wouldn't pass. Photo / Michaela Gower
Kelly Annand said the community driver testing officer programme didn't let anyone sit a test that they thought wouldn't pass. Photo / Michaela Gower
If Kelly Annand could snap her fingers and make one change to help learner drivers, she would invest in more community driver testing officers.
Practical licence test wait times for restricted and full licences are currently months long in many parts of the country, with storiesof people travelling more than 1000km around the country to testing stations just to sit them quickly.
As the general manager for Connect Youth and Community Trust, which runs a Driver Safety and Licensing programme in Central Hawke’s Bay, Annand said she was never short of eager students looking to pass their licence in Waipukurau.
The programme was established in 2022 to increase accessibility to driver testing services, reduce barriers to obtaining a licence, and improve road safety.
“Since then we have been able to test our own students, which has reduced failure rates massively.”
In the meantime, Annand said they were thankful to borrow a testing officer from GOT Drive in Hastings, but it was not enough.
“If you are going to do surge support to help with the testing problems and backlogs, it would make sense to not just capacity build VTNZ but also capacity build the community driver testing officer programme.”
VTNZ is looking for temporary driver testing officer roles on a short-term contract basis, but Annand said there is a more efficient way to solve the issue.
“We have got the solution - the solution is to grow and include the CDTO programme in the surge support, and make it a priority just as much as resourcing VTNZ.”
She wanted it to run parallel with VTNZ to reduce the “bottleneck” at testing stations.
“If I could snap my fingers tomorrow and say let’s do this one thing, I would say take this model and put it right throughout the country and you would reduce wait times immediately.
“One method is not the solution for the future anymore, and NZTA knows the solution, they just need to join the dots and bring those two together.”
She said providing another option would help ease wait times and lessen the pressure on learner drivers to pass the first time.
National director of the Driving Change Network, Wendy Robertson, said CDTOs were able to test skills in an empathic way, which was helpful for those with anxiety.
“Community driver testing officers are different to VTNZ, they work with only those who have been through a community programme and are deemed to be ready.”
Robertson said she would like NZTA to extend the community testing officer programme for community providers.
“This would remove the pressure of these learners from the public VTNZ system, and would have more providers around the country offering to help by putting forward a driving instructor.”
Temporary surge support from NZTA staff for training driver testing officers is designed to ease wait times for practical driving tests. Photo / Warren Buckland
NZTA Temporary surge support to train VTNZ testing officers
NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi national manager regulatory system design, Chris Rodley, said the spike in demand since 2023 is mostly due to two factors, a change in test fees introduced by the previous Government in October 2023, and a significant increase in immigration which has driven a rise in overseas licence conversions.
“VTNZ is now taking the lead on recruitment and training of temporary driver licence testing officers. For temporary driver licence testing officers, we have been advised that VTNZ will consider contracting both individuals or organisations.”
NZTA had eight trainers and five training assistants supporting training for driving test officers in New Zealand.
“We have no trainers in Hawke’s Bay, but we do have one training assistant in Waipukurau.”
VTNZ has 219 driver testing officers including 24 who are currently completing training and VTNZ would determine the length of the temporary roles.
Rodley said the Community-Based Driver Licensing Initiatives team (CBDLI) was investing in community providers to utilise the CDTO model.
“There may be opportunity to align efforts but strictly speaking, these two programmes of work are distinct and have distinct priorities.”
“The CBDL Initiatives team are actively investigating further opportunities to remove barriers to releasing the limited funding we have to enable more CDTOs in communities that need them.”
Michaela Gower joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2023 and is based out of the Hastings and Central Hawke’s Bay newsrooms. She covers Dannevirke and Hawke’s Bay news and has a love for sharing stories about farming and rural communities.
