Teaching them how to create chaos on the road

Many driving schools in the City fail to train their students in the basics of driving as well as road etiquette. Illegal licenses are also a concern

Driving schools in the City teach more often the rote technique than the traffic rules and sensibilities of driving a vehicle in the busy streets. Enrolling into any of the hundreds of driving schools in Hyderabad leaves one with an easy-to-get driver’s license regardless of his/her knowledge of driving. With no common sense or knowledge, many of these drivers armed with legitimate driving licenses, create havoc on road.

In fact, one particular school emphasises only on the “clutch-gear-accelerator-test pass” formula that guarantees a driver a license. While the Haryana government has made a very welcoming move of granting the authority to license drivers right at their educational institutions, Andhra Pradesh remains far behind when it comes to driving etiquette and traffic sense.

A driving school in Somajiguda teaches students on a batch basis. Four or more students are taken out for driving classes, where the instructor is seated next to the driver’s seat and offers guidance (averting a disaster by braking at the right moment etc.) A check conducted by Postnoon reveals that not many of the driver-teachers are aware of the importance of lane discipline, seat belt safety, indicator usage etc. The manual guidance and knowledge required to know how to drive an automobile is taught.

Surprisingly, some teachers have never taught their students approximation of the length of the car bonnet and the right seating methods!

Harish Yadav, a student at a driving school offers an interesting insight into the teaching. “When four or more people are taken on a trip to learn driving, it gets difficult to adjust to every student’s style of learning. I have not been told about the importance of indicators, half clutch, full clutch and acceleration pressure. There is no say over how to drive vehicles in difficult weather conditions, especially during the rains when driving a car on the City roads is a nightmare.”

What is more interesting is, half-trained drivers who often fail the driving test manage to get a driving license, thanks to an unholy tie up the test inspectors have with the driving schools.

When contacted about the validity of teaching, RTA joint commissioner Pandu Ranga Rao said, “Issuing the license depends upon how well the candidate has fared in the test. It is however true that there is no validity to these tests anymore, considering that touts and brokers play the middlemen in it. We will look into this situation and ensure stricter norms are practiced.”

Surprisingly, a middle aged lady who is a resident of Begumpet was granted a driver’s license, even though she could not drive a car or even a two wheeler! This decadent system of teaching driving and issuing licenses ought to be seriously looked into considering the importance of road safety for our lives.

Tags: dricing school, featured, full-image, illegal licenses, road etiquette

Category: City, City News