MPI hires 35 replacement road-test examiners

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This article was published 15/09/2023 (776 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Parents and driving safety professionals are sounding the alarm over the competency of replacement licence examiners contracted by Manitoba Public Insurance to conduct road tests amid strike action, but Crown officials say there is no cause for concern.

“MPI officials are comfortable that public safety on the roadways is not a risk … they will not be graduating drivers who are not capable of safely driving independently,” MPI board chair Ward Keith said by phone Friday.

The Crown corporation has hired 35 replacement examiners who are provincially certified driving instructors. Many have worked as contractors for the high school driver education program — known as Driver Z — for several years. Each candidate was thoroughly vetted and received in-car training before becoming an examiner, Keith said.

He acknowledged the training is not as comprehensive as that provided to MPI’s in-house examiners, but said it is sufficient when coupled with the additional experience and education.

“The driving instructors in the drivers-ed program do in-vehicle evaluations of their students all the time … so the jump to doing road testing under the provincial protocols is not as big as some may think it is.”

Alexander Shannon, a driving instructor and former MPI examiner, disagreed.

“I think the biggest message it sends is that the examiners are easily replaceable, and that’s not the case,” he said.

Shannon, who worked for MPI for six years before opening Diamond Lane Driving Academy, believes the level of training being provided to contractors is dangerously inadequate.

“We’re going to be see accidents coming up in the next while here that prove these examiners are trained and qualified for a reason. It’s going to get bad.”

The former employee described MPI’s examiner training as “very intense,” with new hires completing a roughly six-week program that includes classroom education, reaction testing and in-car job shadowing. He estimated as many as 50 per cent of applicants do not qualify.

He criticized the Crown for opting to hire contractors — something it did not do during the height of backlogs brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Now that it’s benefiting them, they are letting independent contractors in. They didn’t even think of it as an option before because its so outrageously dangerous. Now that it’s helping them with this whole strike situation, they are pulling out all the stops no matter who gets hurt,” Shannon said.

About 1,700 unionized MPI employees hit the picket line on Aug. 28, owing primarily to wage disputes between the Crown and the Manitoba General Employees’ Union.

Around 2,000 road tests were immediately cancelled, with the backlog more than doubling in the weeks since. MPI is not booking new tests, so anybody that did not have a pre-existing appointment is locked out indefinitely. Those who fail their exams also cannot rebook, Keith said.

Seth Hasker, 16, was devastated to learn he failed his road test Wednesday.

The teen was heading eastbound in the leftmost lane on Bairdmore Boulevard near south Pembina Highway when his examiner instructed him to cross the intersection and connect with Dalhousie Drive. As he approached Pembina, the examiner told him the left lane is reserved for turning. Although Seth switched lanes before entering the intersection, he was handed an automatic fail.

Duncan Hasker, the teen’s father, believes the instructor made a mistake because there are no signs, lights or road lines identifying the turning lane.

“The rules, from what I can tell, is he’s allowed to go straight there,” he said, “Maybe (the automatic fail) is correct, but I certainly don’t think it is, and I’ve got no recourse to go back to MPI. You can’t even phone,” he said.

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“It’s certainly better to have a more experienced tester, and I would feel more confident they made the right call because it’s not their first rodeo. This guy was two weeks into it.”

Shannon reviewed Hasker’s account of the test, but said he cannot speculate on whether the examiner made a mistake.

The teen will now be forced to wait out the strike and resulting backlog before he can book another road test.

MPI intends to conduct an audit of all road tests conducted by replacement examiners once strike action ends, Keith said.

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca

Tyler Searle
Reporter

Tyler Searle is a multimedia producer who writes for the Free Press’s city desk. A graduate of Red River College Polytechnic’s creative communications program, he wrote for the Stonewall Teulon Tribune, Selkirk Record and Express Weekly News before joining the paper in 2022. Read more about Tyler.

Every piece of reporting Tyler produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.