Driving schools on the brink of closure due to a shortage of examiners

Getting a driving licence is becoming increasingly difficult, and according to the National Confederation of Driving Schools, the situation could have serious consequences if changes are not made imminently. The body that represents the driving schools in our country has raised the alarm over the shortfall of some 300 examiners that the DGT currently has. This could push the Road Training system to collapse this very summer, which would mean the closure of businesses and the dismissal of thousands of workers.

The current pool of DGT (Directorate-General for Traffic) examiners, frozen for at least the last five years, has been reduced to such an extent that the process of obtaining a driving licence is suffering delays that are paralysing the activity of driving schools.

The delays and unexpected changes of date cause interruptions in students’ training and downtime for instructors, which leads to a loss of training quality and puts at risk, in the first instance, the employment of instructors, a group of 17,975 people.

The situation is especially serious in twelve Provincial Traffic Headquarters, which account for 48% of the licences issued in Spain (Alicante, the Balearic Islands, Barcelona, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Girona, La Rioja, Lleida, Madrid, Navarre, Tarragona and Valencia), where waits of up to one month for the exam can build up, in addition to last-minute date changes.

Each examiner can only conduct 13 tests a day, so at least 200 more examiners are needed. The CNAE is calling for a solution to this problem before the system collapses this summer. “We have repeated it time and again: when the high season returns and demand for driving licences rises considerably, a significant number of offices will suffer a collapse in road tests,” says the president of the CNAE, José Miguel Báez.

The National Confederation of Driving Schools considers an urgent expansion of the current pool of examiners with at least 213 more civil servants, based on the staffing recognised by the DGT itself, although the Confederation’s calculations raise this figure to 324 in order to bring the system back to normal.

The current DGT examiner workforce consists of 756 civil servants, according to the agency’s own data, although the Confederation reduces this number to 619 once certain variables are taken into account, such as holidays and long-term sick leave. The CNAE considers that 943 examiners are needed to restore normality to the training cycle and to exams; in other words, between 200 and 300 more examiners than currently exist are required.

It is worth noting that each examiner can only conduct 13 tests a day (11 during the summer period), which means that the exam shortfall rises to almost 600,000 a year, according to the minimum required (213), and to 900,000 if the shortage of 324 examiners is counted.