PM bats for computerised driving tests
Published:Thursday | February 10, 2011 | 12:00 AM
IF PRIME Minister Bruce Golding has his way, a computer will in future determine whether a person has mastered the fundamentals of driving to obtain a driver's licence.
Contributing to a debate in Parliament yesterday on a private member's motion dealing with issues of road safety, the prime minister said he wanted to take steps to minimise the human contact in the issuing of driver's licences.
He is proposing the introduction of a simulation driving exercise where applicants for licences would have no need to go on the roads to be tested but would be assessed and graded by a computer at a centre.
"I saw this in Florida almost 20 years ago and I am sure that that technology would have advanced significantly since then," he said.
Golding noted that a change in the current arrangement was urgently needed because of the serious problem of illiterate persons obtaining driver's licences.
He said many persons who recently applied to the Jamaica Urban Transit Company Limited for jobs had driver's licences but were unable to read or write.
"The way in which people get licences suggest that the whole system is porous," he said.