THUNDER BAY -- A transport truck driving school is raising issues with the province’s testing procedures locally.
Koral Hamilton, the Thunder Bay campus manager for Transport Training Centres of Canada, said the instruction centre have seen a significant number of their program graduates failing their DriveTest road examinations administered on behalf of the Ministry of Transportation.
“We had an almost perfect pass rate but now we’re done to under a 50 per cent pass rate,” she said Friday. “In our school alone we have between 25 and 28 tests who have failed, which is very high in comparison.”
Listening to feedback from the students, Hamilton said many were failed for minor infractions or not using precise terminology when describing their inspections of the vehicle rather than unsafe driving.
Instructor Lennie Rancourt, who is based of Peterborough but visits various sites within the Transport Training Centres company to lend expertise, said nothing is being done differently in terms of how students are taught but the Thunder Bay failure rates are inconsistent with all other locations across the province.
“I’ve been to four or five different campuses with this company and it’s surprising what’s taking place with the testing here,” he said.
Hamilton said many students have had employment opportunities that were conditional upon immediately passing the test. Those potential jobs were lost after having to wait the mandatory minimum period to retake the test.
She reported other local transport driving schools have also seen their number of failed tests skyrocket.
A number of students at Transport Training have resorted to taking their tests at other sites across the province, including Fort Frances and Kenora.
One student, Chris Monasterski, said while it will cost him extra to travel to Fort Frances for the examination he doesn’t want to chance it in Thunder Bay after hearing stories about many others having to pay the $100 testing fee repeatedly.
“I have cover my own fuel to drive about $700 roundtrip and do it in one day. It’s inconvenient to do that but I don’t have a choice right now,” he said of his decision to make the trip to Fort Frances.
Hamilton said she doesn’t believe the students succeeding in the smaller Northwestern Ontario communities after failing on Thunder Bay roads has anything to do with easier testing conditions.
If the company’s training was at issue she would expect to see those rates affected at their other locations.
“We have campuses in even more challenging places like the Greater Toronto Area and Kitchener where it’s quite busy with off-ramps and highways and we have a near perfect success rate there,” she said.
A statement issued Friday afternoon by the Ministry of Transportation said the local DriveTest facility operates their testing in the same manner as other sites across the province.
“Although pass rates can fluctuate month to month in each DriveTest Centre, there is no evidence to demonstrate that the pass rates in Kenora or Fort Frances are out of line with those in Thunder Bay. The ministry has no evidence to indicate that applicants are passing their road tests when they should have failed or failing when they should have passed.”
The statement also says each road test “uses the same set of manoeuvres whether the road test is done in Thunder Bay, Fort Frances or Kenora.” It adds, though, there are a number of variables, such as traffic, weather and road conditions that make each test unique.
Hamilton said they want to see the testing become more consistent.
