Driving schools face tighter controls

As the scourge of road carnage continues to take the lives of an increasing number of people on Uganda’s motorways, the government says it is rolling out stricter controls for driver training schools. 

With a tighter regulatory framework in place, the authorities believe there will be better driving instruction in licensed schools. The hope is that improved driver training can help bring down deaths on the roads as drivers will have a better grasp of road use rules. 

Already, statistics show that poor driving skills are contributing significantly to the rise in motor accidents. Last year, the police registered 20,394 vehicle accidents, 61 percent of which were blamed on reckless driving. On average, 22 of every 100 people involved in car crashes died.

Among the measures government hopes will curb road deaths include a clamp-down on unlicensed driving schools, many of which have become  conduits for people to irregularly get access to driving permits without undergoing proper training.

Yesterday, a senior official at the Ministry of Works and Transport said they are making it harder for an unlicensed school to operate. The intention is to eventually drive them out of business.

The ministry’s head of motor vehicle inspection, Mr Kharim Kibuuka, told Daily Monitor that measures have been put in place, which will make it impossible for unlicensed schools to thrive.

“Every learner driver is [now] given an enrollment letter by their school, which they present to the Uganda Driver Licensing System (UDLS), who in turn give them a learner’s driving licence. If you are not licensed, you can’t access it,” he said.

Upon completion of a driving course, the school issues learners with a certificate of completion, which must be presented to the Inspector of Vehicles (IoV) before undergoing the testing.
“Again, unlicensed schools are detected from there. We have made life hard for these driving schools because even when we conduct operations, they still come up the following days, so we are ensuring that they don’t access our services by putting mechanisms to lock them out,” he said.
Mr Kibuuka made his comments partly in response to the Auditor General’s 2022 audit of the UDLS, which established that 77 out of 226 sampled driving schools are operating without valid licences.
Auditor General John Muwanga put the extent of the problem in some perspective, noting in his report that when he visited the UDLS office in Kampala and interacted with 94 driving permit applicants, he found that 70 percent of them attended unlicenced driving schools.
He also reported that 30 percent of these applicants carried Certificates of Completion with serial numbers which did not match what was issued at the IoV. Up to 50 percent had certificates with serial numbers, which had already been assigned to someone else, suggesting they were probably fake documents. 

“The ministry has failed to ensure that the issue of driver’s licences adheres to the procedures outlined in all applicable rules. This leads to issuance of licences to incompetent drivers,” the 2022 audit report reads in part. 

About driving schools
Uganda currently has slightly over 100 licensed and regulated driver training schools, according to Mr Kibuuka.

For a school to get a licence to run, Mr Kibuuka said it must have a minimum of two qualified instructors; two training vehicles; a classroom where theory classes are conducted, a training ground, an office registered with the Uganda Registration Services Bureau, and must have a copy of the ministry approved curriculum.

“Any school that does not meet the above criteria is not licensed and is thus not known by the ministry. That is why its students are disqualified when they apply for a driver’s licences,” Mr Kibuuka said.

In a small way, the measures are beginning to be felt in the industry.  

The chief executive officer at Safe Way Driving School, Mr Peter Tibigambwa, told Monitor that after applying for a licence to operate and paying the necessary fees, their premises were checked.

“The ministry dispatches a team of inspectors who come on the ground to ensure that you meet the requirements,” he said, adding that, ” they check the instructors, the vehicles and ensure that you have the certificate of tenancy of occupancy for the land you are operating on.”

Mr Tibigambwa said that since they deal with training drivers for passenger service and heavy duty vehicles their training is programmed for three weeks. Applicants for this training must already know how to drive and should hold a class (B) permit.

“We give you a driving test for 30 minutes to one hour from here and on the road and when you pass, we enroll you. You undergo a five days in-class training and after transition to a 10 days in driving,” he said.

Upon completion, the student is then given a certificate of completion which they present to the IoV ahead of testing.

Mr Kibuuka said only licensed schools should have access to the IoV, and that it is at this point that unlicensed schools run into trouble.

Link to road crashes
A road safety expert yesterday linked the rise in road carnage to drivers who are not properly trained, having most likely attended an unlicensed school without the required facilities.

Mr Joseph Ojambo Komakech, the executive director of Responsive Drivers Uganda questioned the skills and knowledge of some instructors. According to him, the majority of drivers on Uganda’s roads are just pushing vehicles, not driving in the real sense – which is an indictment on their instructors’ abilities.