Op-Ed: Ontario’s drivers licensing system needs to make a U-turn

A driver's license is a step toward freedom that often happens in the late teen years. Think about when your child gets behind the wheel of a car for the first time, and then again without you being there. 

While this freedom is a luxury, concerns are continuously raised about just how safe our roads are in Ontario.

During the pandemic, there was a massive backlog in driving tests. As a result, three-point turns, parallel parking and emergency stops were removed from G license testing which is supposed to signify that a driver is completely competent behind the wheel. 

This was originally supposed to be a temporary change but Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney said in a Tweet last year that it would stay in effect to allow for "more streamlined tests."

But is convenience truly the priority above safety? Unfortunately, it seems that safety has lost close to all significance when matched up against convenience and profit. It comes down to one simple thing that is missing: accountability.

If a person goes to a bar and consumes too much alcohol, that bar that served the individual is responsible for their safety even after they’ve left. However, is the testing centre responsible if an 18-year-old kid gets his G2 driver's license and gets into an accident the next day?

"We don’t even track that," said President of the Ontario Safety League Brian Patterson. "You don’t have to take any training to book your driver's test, you just have to wait four months longer than someone who did."

In my conversation with Brian, it became clear that for every regulation in the drive testing system, there’s a loophole. 

For instance, there are plenty of options for driving schools in Ontario, though most require drivers to spend time in a classroom and at least ten (10) hours in a car with a licensed instructor to receive a certificate from the program.

However, there is an underground market of driving schools that are completely unregulated and have been the dominant mode to maneuver around the need for experience.

"People are taking lessons that they found on Kijiji," Brian said. "They’re getting into a car without a certified driving instructor and they’ll drive around a parking lot, go on the road, and that’s it, that’s their training."

He continues, "There are also a number of locations that are providing certificates with no training."

The Ontario Safety League says it is "rampant" that people, especially those with licenses from other countries, will do just a couple hours of driving with an unregulated institution but still receive a certificate stating that they got their 10 hours of driving and 20 hours of in-class instruction.

Between 2014 and 2022, the number of collision-related fatalities in Ontario has risen from 517 to 944, according to the MTO. While correlation does not imply causation, these numbers will certainly raise eyebrows 

When it comes to the testing itself in Ontario, many regulated instructors will point out that the standards haven’t changed much over four decades. Brian Hart, a nearly 20-year instructor with Young Drivers of Canada echoed this saying that "the marking for that test hasn’t changed much since the 1970s."

The Government of Ontario’s regulated testing centre (DriveTest) website states that the G2 test should usually be about 20 minutes while the G test is around 30 minutes. 

Hart says that the first road test a new driver sees nowadays is around 10-15 minutes. 

"There’s been a push to catch up on things and clear backlogs so they actually shortened down the booking times so that they could get more tests in per day," Hart says.

Another common way that drivers avoid some of the difficulties associated with passing their test can be seen on this website. A map that outlines the likelihood of passing your driver's test based on the location of the testing centre across Ontario. 

In response to questions from Oakville News, the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) commented on the matter, saying, "There are review processes in place to ensure that the examination process is being adhered to, province-wide, according to ministry requirements."

"This includes monitoring driver examiners through performance assessments, auditing DriveTest locations and reporting compliance. In addition, the Ministry of Transportation oversees examiner pass rates through regular reporting from the vendor and analytics."

In response to G road test modifications, the MTO stated, "Ontario has some of the safest roads in Canada and we intend to keep it that way. To address the backlog of driver testing, our government introduced a comprehensive plan to open additional temporary centres, hire additional temporary driver examiners, and offer passenger road tests with extended operating hours, including weekends."