Last of Code 10?
Yip, it’s just a matter of time now before February 2011 the driving school industry will see the last of Code 10 applicants who are just too chicken to do Code 8 parallel parking. With stats revealing that there are 50 000 more Code 10 applicants than Code 8, it is not surprising that someone had to notice at some point what I have for a long time.
The basics of regulations has already been approved and all that needs to happen is for the Traffic Act to be amended and officially published in the Government Gazette.
But what does that mean in your world?
The way the government looks at the problem is that there are many drivers out there in vehicles other than what they had been tested in. This is much more dangerous than parallel parking – it is as simple as completely different vehicle dynamics between a truck and a car. Different gear ratios, different speed, different accidents all together, when they occur.
So what the government plans to do, according to preliminary reports is to have a cut-off point at which you may be able to drive a different class of vehicle than the one you had been tested on. The Government Gazette will specify exactly, but according to recent info, you may stand a change of having to be re-tested in Code 8 when it is apparent that you did a Code 10 Driver’s Test but driving a Code 8 vehicle.
How exactly that will be implemented I have no idea, but I guess the same corruption will enter the fray. My guess is that you would get “test station snitches” that would “report” you. Possibly the same guy that can “organise” the Code 10 test so well. Possibly a good and legal system might even see the light. Who knows.
For me, that is not the end of the problem since many, many legal licenses issued are raging and destructive bushfires just waiting to be lit, not to mention the destructive elements of illegal licenses.
Why?
There is yet another problem which has not been addressed to date. Companies demanding that job applicants to have a driver’s license. Not all together a bad thing.
BUT…
For every job applicant that technically doesn’t NEED a license for their daily work duties, you now have a loaded gun scenario where desperate applicants are doing a Code 10 test because they view their chances of success better than doing parallel parking on Code 8, knowing that they may drive a Code 8 vehicle anyway (for now).
But there’s more…
These job applicants (and some others) now have a wonky licence at best, 99% of them don’t have a car and least of all a truck to drive, they might not be able to afford a car or truck in any event, but they are now LICENSED! Yip, for as long as they keep their license renewal up to date, they can buy any car they can afford, the second that they can afford it.
Here’s the problem – by the time they can afford that car, they would have been using public transport for YEARS, never driven a kilometre since their driver’s test, so technically, they would be what? Learner Drivers all over again! What makes this so extremely dangerous is that these drivers might not necessarily go back to a driving school for lessons to refresh their skills or start from scratch but they will take their chances out on our roads and endanger everyone!!
It really boils down to an ethical issue for me, in essence.
You want your job applicant to have a licence as a pre-requisite? Then your job applicant needs to have a RIGHT to have a licence, opposed to current views that driving and driving licences are privileges. Together with that RIGHT your job applicant should then have, comes the company responsibility of subsidising that driver license cost by at least 50%. While the corporate world is at it, they may as well get legislation changed to the effect that job applicants be given the right to a driver license, so the government can pitch in and sponsor the other 50% of license cost as its effort in job creation.
Am I totally nuts?!!! Possibly.
All I know is that when I was asked to give a 50-something lady a “refresher course” last year, it was patently obvious that she couldn’t remember how to drive. She had been a happy public transport commuter since 1994 when she got her legal license and never been behind the wheel of a car since. Her company was responsible enough to lay out cash to get her skills in order for the delivery job they had in mind for her. Had she been a fresh job applicant, I suspect THIS company may even have accommodated her in the same way. Few others can say the same. UPS takes the lead in so many ways…(really worth the read)
This same concern grips me when I get frantic calls to do “Learner Rescues” where the drivers are stuck in traffic, panic-stricken and frightened out of their minds. All these drivers ever wanted was a job!!!!
Few companies care, but then again, few people have jobs these days, I guess.
I don’t think I’ll ever understand how the corporates are willing to employ someone on the basis of having a license, just for the sake of it, yet be willing to open themselves up to the production/financial/medical/disability/pension cost of probable injury and/or death of these same employees possibly having other company employees as passengers at any point. The CEO has Key Man Insurance due to his value to the company and its survival, right?
What do the employees get? Danger Pay? Forced License Compensation?
What does the company get? A replacement. Yet another fresh applicant with a driver’s license as pre-requisite – there’s thousands of them eager hopefuls out there, right?
Licences are being churned out like McDonalds burgers these days. Forced licenses are much like water – it takes the path of least resistance. That, opposed to the records of 102 000 UPS drivers worldwide which are among the safest on the roads, logging more than 2 billion miles – and less than one accident per million miles driven – per year.
Whatever the Code, DO IT RIGHT, PROPER and LEGAL!!!
