Connect Community Group offers driver training and testing in Central Hawke's Bay. Photo: 123rf
A Hawke's Bay community has side-stepped long waits for driver licence tests with a one-stop shop community driving service.
Transport Agency Waka Kotahi recently changed the rules so people who failed their learner driver licence twice in a day would have to wait 10 working days before they could resit in an attempt to reduce wait times for theory tests.
In December last year, the agency said in some parts of the country wait times for practical driver tests were at more than 90 days, with the national average being around 60 days.
But the Hawke's Bay town of Waipukurau has got a one-stop shop community driving service helping get people behind the wheel.
"We can actually test our own people after we've trained them" - Kelly Annand
Connect Community Group general manager Kelly Annand, who is also Central Hawke's Bay deputy mayor, said they started up the group about 11 or 12 years ago.
"One of the things we recognise in a rural community is the barrier to employment was driver licensing."
The operation started small using a couple of borrowed cars to teach people to drive, but initially they would still have to go to Dannevirke or Hastings to sit the practical side of test, she said.
"Now it's a bit of a five-day operation, three cars and we have the ability to do the testing in our own community and we have access to our own testing officers."
As well as cars, the group also trains and tests for class 2 and 4 licences, as well as Wheels, Tracks and Rollers (WTR) endorsements, she said.
The New Zealand Transport Agency had a programme called the Driver Licensing Improvement System and a few of those who had been working in that area in Hawke's Bay were invited to join, she said.
"We were invited into that space to be able to just really give advice as to some of the systems changes that needed to happen within the driver licensing to break down the barriers for people."
A project that ran alongside that was to improve access to driver licensing which was how they managed to get driver licensing back into central Hawke's Bay, she said.
"The other project was helping organisations like us have our own community testing offices on site so separate to VTNZ."
That allowed staff at the organisation to assess whether or not their trainees were ready to sit a drivers licence and avoided applicants trying to sit before they were ready, failing, and then clogging up the system with resits, she said.
Annand said the testers were not the driving instructors and it had become "a really awesome streamlined process".
Other communities who wanted to implement a similar initiative should push for the pilot NZTA Driver Licensing Improvement System programme to continue, she said.
"We need to deal to the systemic change that is needed within the driver licensing system to get the real change cause what we're experiencing with the wait times is just the result of things that have needed to change for a very long time."
The community approach worked and driver licensing needed to start being viewed as a public good rather than a private good, particularly in rural communities, she said.
"We just haven't got public transport, we're never going to get it."
Decision-makers such as politicians need to be aware that the NZTA pilot programme which helps communities is a way of solving some of the driver licensing issues, she said.
In a rural community having a licence opens up many more opportunities for people, she said.
"It actually changes lives, we often say we're changing lives one licence at a time and it really is true."
The work needed due to damage wrought by Cyclone Gabrielle would continue for some time, she said.
"We need our own people to be able to access the work and drive themselves there, but when they're there to be able to be the operators that can actually do the work as well."