Would-be truckers face traffic jam before road tests
The closure of Ontario’s largest commercial truck road test centre in Woodbridge last month has created a booking backlog for aspiring truck drivers whose wait times have more than doubled, Toronto truck driving schools say.

thestar.com
April 27, 2015
By Kenyon Wallace

The closure of Ontario’s largest commercial-truck road test centre in Woodbridge last month has created a booking backlog for aspiring truck drivers whose wait times have more than doubled, Toronto truck driving schools say.

Jagjeet Deol, owner of City Truck & Forklift Driving School in northern Etobicoke, says his students are waiting “more than one month” to schedule their road tests after the Woodbridge DriveTest Centre shuttered in March. Prior to the closing, Deol said students could normally book a test through his school within 10 days.

“Students are like, ‘Oh my God, a month and a half wait?’ ” said Neha Sandhu, Deol’s school administrator who books road tests on students’ behalf. “Students say ‘I’m already a good driver...I just need a test. Why that long?’”

Aspiring truckers in the GTA have historically had three truck-testing centres to choose from: Woodbridge, Brampton and Downsview. But with the closure of the Woodbridge centre, the Brampton and Downsview locations have had to pick up the slack.

The Star spoke to six truck-driving-school operators who say they were caught off guard in late March when the Woodbridge DriveTest centre - an exclusive commercial-class, truck-licensing facility used by those seeking their AZ licence to become tractor-trailer drivers - closed its doors with only a few days’ notice after its lease ran out. The schools say there aren’t enough testing locations or examiners in the GTA to handle the volume of truck licence seekers.

The Ministry of Transportation says a new test centre in York Region will replace the Woodbridge site and is expected to open in the fall of 2015.

Brampton resident Manjot Sarao, a student at City Truck & Forklift Driving School, says his future in the trucking industry is being jeopardized by the long wait times. The school, which is booking Sarao’s road test on his behalf, has been waiting to hear from DriveTest for about two weeks and does not yet have a date.

“I’m losing my money, I’m losing my time, I’m losing my future job,” said Sarao, 25, who failed his first road test in March and is now waiting to try again. “Trucking is good money, it’s a nice career, and I can open my own (business).”

But he says any efforts to line up a job are stymied because he doesn’t know when his road test will happen.

Under the ministry’s contract with Serco, the private multi-national company that operates DriveTest and conducts all driving exams, truck road test candidates’ exams must be conducted within 42 days.

Serco spokesperson Angela O’Regan told the Star via email that candidates who book their own tests will be provided one within the prescribed time limit, but some schools “may have to wait longer if they want a number of consecutive test sessions for different students,” using “back-to-back bookings.”

She said Serco “employs sufficient driver examiners to meet our contractual wait-time requirements.”

At the Brampton and Downsview test centres, the number of tractor-trailer examiners ranges between two and three, she said. “If necessary, Serco moves driver examiners from one location to another to match the workload.”

Naeem Cheema, owner of Pine Valley Driving Academy in Etobicoke, says he submitted a road test request on behalf of one of his students on April 22 and was told the earliest test available was June 4 - one day past the 42-day time limit.

“The contract says tests will be booked within 42 days. I’m not asking for back-to-back bookings, so this is a violation of the contract,” said Cheema, who says wait times for road tests have gotten longer since the Woodbridge test centre closed. “If I can’t promise my students a swift road test, I’m losing money because students will go somewhere else.”

The affected student, Abram Goertzen, said he has a job lined up that requires him to get his tractor-trailer licence as soon as possible.

“I’ll have to get another job because they’re going to hire someone else,” said Goertzen, 50, a Listowel-area resident who hopes to switch to driving trucks after working for years in a welding shop. “If I have to wait that long, I’ll just forget about it and get another job and get my money back.”

Radek Rogowski, operations manager for Richards Truck Driving School in Mississauga, said where students used to have to wait a month, they are now waiting up to two months for a test.

He says province should open another truck testing centre in the GTA.

“We need something else in the west end. We have Brampton and that’s pretty much it,” Rogowski said. “The city of Toronto is underserved.”

The ministry says the closure of the Woodbridge test centre was unrelated to a compliance review it conducted late last year. That review confirmed the findings of a Star investigation that revealed Serco was failing to properly road test tractor-trailer candidates at the facility.

The Star’s investigation found that a ministry requirement that would-be truckers be tested on roads with a minimum speed limit of 80 km/h was not being followed. The Star also found that candidates were earning their licences without being taken on a 400-series expressway, despite the exam centre’s proximity to Highways 427 and 407.