The waiting lists at the Central Bureau for Driving Skills (CBR) are causing problems for motorcycle driving schools and their customers. A tour of Drenthe driving schools shows that especially the practical exams for the motorcycle and trailer are under pressure. Some driving schools therefore do not accept customers or only after they have passed their theory test.
The problems are most apparent in the motorcycle driving test. For your motorcycle license you have to pass two exams, vehicle control and traffic participation. After a student has passed the vehicle control exam, he or she has one year to also pass the exam for traffic participation. “We recently experienced that someone had not passed his traffic exam. And after that we could not get a traffic exam before the vehicle control had expired. That student had to retake both exams,” explains instructor Wiebe van den Broek of Rijschool Noord. situation.
One of the two women who is taught by Van den Broek on Wednesday mornings also feels the pressure increasing. Karin Brandsma has planned her traffic participation exam in December, but if she does not pass it, she will not be able to retake the exam before the vehicle control exam has expired. Then she will also have to retake both exams.
Apart from the inconvenience, the delay also unnecessarily incurs costs for customers, Eline Pol agrees. “It just takes longer before you can take your exam. In the meantime, of course, you have to keep taking lessons.”
The CBR confirms that the waiting lists are longer than they would like. She points out that hard work is being done to reduce waiting times. For example, the reservation period for an exam is currently 13.5 weeks, but a few months ago it was still 22 weeks, so there is a decrease. The aim of the CBR is that the waiting time in the long term is no more than seven weeks.
Motorcyclists who first have to wait almost half a year and now still three months can still get into trouble. Instructor Van den Broek therefore hopes that the CBR will do more to shorten those waiting times. “I have the idea that they could do a little more to get rid of exams.”
Watch the video about the motorcycle lessons below: