My fourth son just passed his driving test. Aside from the usual ecstasy of the new young driver (paralleled by fearful anxiety on the part of the parents), this means that the seemingly endless stream of funds for drivers’ education – much greater than my experience growing up in the United States prepared me for – has finally ceased, at least until child number five comes of age.
This time, the whole process cost us a mere NIS 8,500.
The driver’s education process in Israel is insane. The person learning to drive is required to take a minimum of 28 lessons with a certified driving instructor, at a cost of NIS 100-120 per 40-minute lesson. Each drivign test costs NIS 536, a sum that includes an obligatory fee of NIS 200 to the instructor for use of his or her car.
Few students can get by with only 28 lessons. The instructor, who benefits from each additional lesson, decides if and when the student is ready for the test, and is the only one who can schedule the test with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Few pass the first time they take the test. The longer the process goes on, the greater the revenues of both the instructors and the state, so that there is no incentive to teach and certify student drivers efficiently and expediently.
Yet the most infuriating obstacle is that the law forbids students from practicing with an experienced driver other than the certified teacher. And this is a law that’s enforced: Anyone caught practicing without a certified driving instructor is punished severely. Judges normally levy fines of thousands of shekels and suspend the license of the person helping the student driver to learn, and bar the student from obtaining a license for a long time, even years.
If perhaps the driving and traffic statistics in Israel were sublime, we might congratulate ourselves for having perfected driving education. But drivers here have a pitifully poor performance record. While traffic fatalities per capita in Israel have declined over the past decade, we still rank near the bottom in traffic safety compared to other developed countries according to a 2011 report from the Central Bureau of Statistics.
In the United States and in Europe, allowing for local variations, the norm is to issue a learner’s permit after the student passes the theory test (and in some cases a minimum number of practical driving lessons with a certified instructor ). Preparation for the theory test, and even a few practical lessons, are often offered for free or at a minimal cost in high schools. The learner’s permit allows the student to practice with an experienced driver. Anyone, like me, who learned to drive in the U.S. knows that these practice sessions crucially provided the confidence and comfort necessary for competent driving, and we learned our skills without the enormous expense or emotional pain inflicted by the Israeli system.
Furthermore, the current system is an offense to social justice. The total cost of earning a license can easily exceed the average monthly salary for many Israelis, and while a few soldiers can learn to drive in the army, that does not solve the problem for most young drivers, who have trouble paying thousands of shekels for a driver’s license. In our society, driving is an essential skill; public transportation is inadequate in many areas, especially the periphery, and driving offers greater professional and social mobility and flexibility.
How have we allowed this driving education system to continue? The problem is that the process is finite, although to a kid who’s just failed his exam for the third time, it may not feel that way. Furthermore, veteran Israeli drivers, who were never exposed to a saner option, usually shrug off this issue, assuming they have to accept the system imposed on them. But they don’t have to accept it!
Driving education could be reformed with a few simple steps to lower costs, reduce incentive for corruption in the system and instill greater sanity.
First, anybody who passes the theory test and completes a minimum number of lessons (10 seems reasonable ) should be able to get a learner’s permit allowing him/her to drive with an experienced driver. Additional professional lessons should be at the student’s discretion. Alternately, the 28-lesson system could be retained, but as a maximum for which payment is required: The driving instructor would have to keep the student until he or she has a license, no matter how many additional lessons are needed. No doubt the number of lessons students take would drop dramatically.
Second, anyone should be able to apply directly to the licensing bureau for a driving test and use any car they wish. Third, the exorbitant rate for a test should be reduced, especially after the first test, when the student is already registered in the system. Finally, driver’s education should be included in the high school curriculum as an item for a more socially just 2013 budget.
There are surely other ways to reform a broken system. I myself have one more kid who will have to learn how to drive and I wonder how we’ll stay sane – and out of debt – once more through this infuriating process. Let’s bring a more socially just, fair and efficient drivers’ education system to Israel.
Naomi Schacter is the associate director of Shatil, an initiative of the New Israel Fund.
A driving instructor has been caught up in the increasingly complicated Kent County Council’s rubbish recycling system.
