Sylvia Henderson from Henderson Driving School instructing Jared Sucro. The driving school restarted on June 1 (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Chad Klassen

ROAD EXAM DELAYS

Kamloops student drivers back on the road, have long wait to conduct road exam

Jul 7, 2020 | 5:11 PM

KAMLOOPS — Students drivers who have been stalled during the pandemic are now able to book their road test.

ICBC has announced it will be resuming non-commercial road tests on July 20. Motorcycle exams restart on Wednesday. The insurance corporation will spend this week calling customers who had tests cancelled due to COVID-19. According to ICBC, priority will be given to exam scheduled in March when the pandemic hit.

There are 55,000 student drivers awaiting exam dates. It means students drivers like Jared Sucro from Kamloops may have to wait until the fall. He was originally expected to take his exam in August.

“For a lot of the kids, all the tests got backed up, so now not just March and April but now it’s all the kids throughout summer,” said Sucro. “All the tests are going to be moved back, which is kind of frustrating because you were expecting that you were looking forward to that date and now you’re going to wait that extra couple. But I’m sure when the time comes, everyone’s going to be ready and everyone’s going to be excited.”

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Sucro’s been back on the road for the last month, rusting off some skills.

“I’ve been on the road for a little bit now since [COVID-19] started, so I’m feeling confident,” he said.

After two months of no driving, Jared is leaning on instructor Sylvia Henderson to guide him safely through Kamloops. Both are glad to be behind the wheel again. The Henderson Driving School was shut down for nearly three months. She stopped lessons on Mar. 20 and resumed June 1.

“It was pretty hard on the kids because now they’ve got nothing to do. They’re bored,” she said. “It was hard on myself and all the other driving schools. We weren’t working at all.”

Henderson says there is some work to do before certain students are exam-ready. She has noticed a definite drop in skills on the road.

“They’ve just been with their parents. Their parents were doing the best they could with their kids,” noted Henderson. “They’re not instructors. They’re remembering from when they were taught, so some of them had built some bad habits that we all had to try and break.”

Jared is using the wait time to freshen up his skills that diminished a little during the pandemic.

“It was a little hard getting back into it, but now that I’m here, it’s been pretty nice and pretty good to get back into driving lessons.”