China's Ministry of Public Security is currently tabling a suggestion to let people sit their driving test after simply teaching themselves how to drive or learning from friends and family — essentially making driving lessons optional.
Rolling back driving instruction may seem counter-intuitive to anyone who's ever been in a moving vehicle in China ever, but the suggestion is less about that than it is about attacking the schools themselves.
Corruption is so endemic in China's official driving schools that the government is considering the move as means to undermine and bypass them, stripping them of the power to demand that students pay out "insurance money" (i.e. bribes that go to invigilators for the theory tests and cops who run the practical test). These insurance fees can go for as much as RMB4,000 a pop, more than the cost of the lessons themselves
This year alone, two major corruption scandals have erupted from motoring schools. In Shijiazhuang, Hebei, 22 monitors from the vehicle administration department were found to have received millions of RMB to manipulate test results. Meanwhile in Hainan, 42 examiners raked in over RMB20 million in bribes.
Officials are also hoping that by breaking up this racketeering relationship between instructors and examiners, they'll actually improve road safety. Many instructors fail to teach their pupils practical motoring skills and instead just prep them to pass the exam — their success in which will, at any rate, depend mainly on whether or not they're paid "insurance" to their teacher.
Allowing prospective drivers to learn either from accredited schools or from family and friends is established practice in many developed countries, such as Sweden and Japan. By following their example, the well-established practice amongst richer Chinese of going abroad to attain foreign licenses rather than going through the domestic system may also peter out.
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