AT fiest glance it
appears that the new
Graduated Licence
Program (GLP) will be
. a great boon to the dri-
ving schooi industry. At
. second glance, it won’t.
At third glance, who
cares?

Neither ICBC nor the
Motor Vehicle Branch —
which are the same body
‘these days — has ever put any
stock in the driving school
industry, regarding it as noth-

Sing more than a squeaky

“wheel over in. the corner.
‘There is a reason for this.
Depending. on whose statistics

‘Ou read, a_miere five-10% of

cw drivers currently make
use of a driving school’s ser-

ices, .

.Furthermore, there aren’t
any cold, hard and unbiased
stats showing: paid driver
instruction. makes any differ-

énee in the grand road-safety -.

cheine.of things. And gov
ing a small niche industry
ich specializes in a once-in-
fetime service isa fruitless,
thankless task ... until now.
With the advent of the six-
onth Learner Driver stage
established by the GLP comes
the conditional quick fix of
d”. driver raining,

signals

cutting, the wait time in half
(to three months). Currently,
there is no such thing as an
“approved” driver taining
course though acerediration
plans are in the works.

It seems unlikely thar
more than a few parents will
be swayed by the anxious teen
who simply can’t wait an
additional three months
before going solo. Forking
over a sew hundred bucks to a
newly “approved” driving
school hardly seems worth it,
in light of the fact that a mere
10% of parents consider the

_idea in the first place. It*s

improbable, too, that new
B.C. residents needing a dri-
ver’s licence — or 10% of
those — will wiifully fork over
a few C-notes just to shorten
the wait.

This is all well and good
when one considers the
objective of an extended
learning phase: better, more

north shore news

__ AUTO
Cares about cri

experienced drivers.

This is not so well and
good when one considers thar
“waiting” and “learning”
don’t necessarily go hand in
hand. To wit, there is nothing
stopping 2 new driver from
learning, just enough to pass
an as-yet unspecitied, unrcal-
ized, road test of bureaucratic
design.

So convincing the public
that there is merit to
approved driver training
courses is lett in the lap of the
driving school industry.

As it currently stands,
there are a handful of excel-
lent, big-name driving schools
eagerly offering an in-depth,
thorough and excellent train-
ing program.

A plethora of smaller
schools exists as well, some of
them just as excellent as the
big brand names. But some
are barely adequate driving
schools offering little more
than barely adequate training
at cut-throat rates. Some of
these even mean well but just
don’t have the stuff, others
simply want your money.

Finally, on the dark side,
there is another handful of — -
driving schools that will seli
you a driver's licence white
barely disguising themselves
as legitimate purveyors of the
crash-course.

Ina “put up or shut up if
you picase” manner, the GLP
will, in effect, change all this.
The hammer falls and the
weak shall be squashed, well,
most of the weak...

Sadly, this blind justice will
Hatten a few of the good
along with the bad and the
ugly driving schools.

Mapping a Safe Course:
The Graduated Licensing
Program Curriculum for
Driver Training School in
British Columbia is a fairly
comprehensive, government-
issucd booklet describing the
necessary components needed
for driving school accredita-
tion.

Keeping in mind thar only
10% of a few of you even care
about this, the guide/bookler
is, in short, The Poop.
Leaving nothing to chance,
the required program includes
mandatory instruction of all
aspects of maior vehicle con-
trol (gone are the days of pay-
ing to memorize the test
route) as well as intangibles
such as personal-risk assess-
iment and lifestyle and how
they afiect driving.

Compulsory classroom
theory i is 3 big element, not
only for its depth and breadth
but for its resulting demand
for a rented/leased /owned
classroom space.

Friday, May 1, 1998 — North Shore News — 37

Any school wishing to be
accredited (those who don’t
are sure to become obsolete)
must meet some lofty stan-
dards indeed. Currently, most
in that first handful of schools
already meet the Safe Course
Cucriculum in spades. They
will, however, have to shell
out the big bucks for a
mandatory “mapping” course
and endure government
scrutiny betore being recog-
nized as the fine institutes
they already are. OL. well.

The “plethora-category”
schools are much more hard
done by. While a large num-
ber of these schools could usc
a good kick in the pants, a
significant number of them
already meet the most crucial
Sate Course criteria while
omitting superfluous things
like “classroom” study —~ a
training aspect for which
there is very little consumer
demand and of dubious benc-

-fit at any rate.

Worse, many smaller oper-
ations, while maintaining
excellent training standards
aren’t necessarily in a financial
position to procure classroom
space let alone staff it. It has
been said that some sort of
small-guy consortium will be
developed in an effort to
share the classroom burden
— which sounds ideal and

“

ving schools? #@

therefore wrought with prob-
tems, like throat cutting.

Keep in mind that the
small-guy-school must not
only buck up, it must also
spoil at Jeast a week’s worth
of revenue while enduring the
Sate Course class. So much
for the little guy.

As far as the Iving, cheat- ‘<=
ing, bonchead driving schools
go, there’s really nothing to
be done about them. Though
some may be pulped in the
same way that a few smaller-
and- good schools are bound
to be, the nefarious will

always be there whether
cloaked in the accreditation or
not.

Taking the good with the
bad, the safe course described
is a mighty hammer and sure-
yv areliefto the 10% ofa few
of you who could care less.

It’s also a fine way of
employing a few more ”
bureaucrats in the guise of
driving school inspectors. It’s
alse another way of generat-
ing revenue as schools pay to
prove their worth.

Driving school aceredita-
tion is a fine method for :
ensuring better standards for
the 10% of a tew consumers
who care.

It’s a fairly safe bet that .
10% of new drivers will truly
learn to be safe.

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