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"Auckland's the problem child" when it comes to a blowout in wait times to sit licence tests, NZTA says.
Potential applicants for a driver's licence are facing lengthy waits for a test slot. In desperation, some are travelling to Thames, Matamata, and Te Awamutu which is 150km from Auckland.
NZTA said the demand for tests has gone up 60 percent and it was trying to bolster testing officer numbers.
To help ease congestion the government has agreed to extend the amount of time people can drive on over licences from 12 to 18 months.
Learner drivers travelling 280km to sit licence tests
At the Glen Innes VTNZ centre in East Auckland, learner drivers told Checkpoint the long wait times were frustrating.
"It's too long ... If I book right now, so I get a date for January," one man said.
Another said: "I'm pretty lucky, because I got a spot online. I guess someone just dropped it so I got it pretty quick in a month I guess ...It's frustrating when you go into websites and see there are no slots available."
A third man said: "I just heard it was super booked out all the time."
Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey both declined to be interviewed by Checkpoint.
NZTA's national manager regulatory system design Chris Rodley said the current wait times were unacceptable and frustrating, however, they were starting to improve in most parts of the country.
It was around 35 days for a full licence test and 46 for a restricted test.
Auckland was the exception with a wait time of 58 days for a full licence test and 72 days for a restricted test.
The city was "the problem child" and the main reason was the population size and record high migration to the country after the pandemic.
Most migrants settled in Auckland and they needed to convert their overseas licences into New Zealand licences. All up, they made up about 72 percent of all full licence tests and about 50 percent for the rest of the country.
The government extension allowing overseas licences to be valid for 18 months would "smooth the curve at the very least", Rodley said.
The government's removal of resit fees has had the "unintended consequence" of boosting the number of applicants.
Another 50 driving testing officers had been recruited and were being trained with more being hired in November.
Many of the testing officers were working overtime to try and do more tests - usually they did 10 to 12 in a day.
"We're looking at shifting temporarily people up from other areas to Auckland just to meet the demand."
Those people would come from Wellington, Canterbury and the central North Island where wait times were under 30 days.
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