Trainers threaten DSA boycott
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by Derren Hayes • Hundreds of the UK's HGV driving instructors could boycott the Driving Standards Agency's voluntary register of instructors if Government proposals are given the go-ahead.
The DSA has recommended that instructors already registered with the driver training body Road Transport Industry Training Business Services (RTITB) should be allowed onto the voluntary register automatically.
RTITB members would be exempt from the initial two-part entrance examination because the DSA thinks it already applies sufficient industry standards. However, the DSA says other instruction qualifications don't have the same industry recognition necessary to waive the initial entrance tests.
A DSA spokesman described the decision to allow RTITB members onto the list as "a practical measure." He adds: "We wouldn't have the time to test all instructors and RTITB qualifications are sound."
The DSA says it will not release the results of a study that looked at the pass rates of all instruction qualifications: "It would create a kind of favouritism to whoever was getting the highest pass rate," it says.
The proposals have caused uproar among those not affiliated to the RTITB.
Nick Smith, head of training school Roadtrain and a member of the Association of Vocational Driver Training Providers, says: "The consensus of opinion in the industry is if the DSA doesn't listen it can go and play on its own. Our argument is, nobody should get onto the register without taking the test."
Responses to the DSA consultation document need to be submitted by 22 November, with the voluntary register due to be up and running by April 1997. 111 The DSA has delayed the release of the new driving theory test study booklet until late November—giving instructors and candidates one month to prepare for the new test that begins in January.