Can all Kenyan drivers be re-tested in one year?
The Sunday Nation
Nairobi,
22 December 2013
Mugambi Peter is concerned about the recent announcement from the ministry of transport that all Kenyan drivers will be tested again next year. His is not worried about his chances of passing the driving exam but about the viability of the undertaking. He writes: “I don't know how many licensed drivers there are in Kenya, but I think it would take a very long time to finish testing all of them a second time. May be the authorities will have to suspend the testing of new drivers while re-testing the old ones. Can you calculate for us how long this will take?”
Well, Peter, this would be have been a straightforward calculation if one got the necessary data, namely, the number of licensed drivers and the number of testing centres and examiners available. Unfortunately, I asked the relevant authorities – Kenya Revenue Authority and Kenya Police – for this data by email but, two weeks down the road, they have not replied. That leaves me with no choice but to make an estimate; so here we go.
Instead of trying to figure out how long it would take re-test all the drivers, I think it is easier to work out how many can be tested in a year. My quick answer to that is ZERO! It is impossible to re-test even one single driver in Kenya today! I say this because we don’t even have enough capacity to test new drivers. What the learner-drivers go through before getting their licenses is a farce. They drive the vehicles for about 20m and that’s it! With that, the examiners pretend to be able to gauge the competence of the learners. It’s a big joke!
30 years ago, when I took my driving test, it lasted about 45 minutes and I truly believe that this is how long a proper exam should last. Therefore, starting from 8am, one examiner can test only 3 people before taking a tea break at 10:15am. Then starting again at 10:30am, test another 3 candidates before going for lunch at 12:45pm.
Assuming the examiner does not take another tea break he can test another 4 people between 2pm and 5pm. That makes a total of 10 candidates per examiner per working day.
The reason for this small number is that a driving test is not like other exams: each candidate must be tested separately – alone with the examiner. You cannot put, say 20 learner-drivers in one exam room for the test!
With five working days, the examiner can test 50 learners per week. And in one year (52 weeks), he can examine 2,600 candidates.
Now assuming that there is one testing centre in each of the 47 counties and that every centre has two examiners, it turns out that nationally, 244,400 learners can be properly tested each year.
The question that now remains is whether this number is enough to cover both the new learner drivers and the old licensed ones. Without the relevant data, it is not possible to say, but my instinct tells me that the answer is probably no.
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