Lack of employees, sophisticated site visitors, excessive inflation. The value of driving licenses has elevated enormously. The Union needs to vary that – and is proposing twelve measures, corresponding to driving simulators. The Greens, nonetheless, level to utterly completely different “cost drivers”.
The Union is asking for a complete reform of the driving license system in Germany. The cause: costs are rising. The ADAC offered a survey in 2023 in response to which nearly half of novice drivers not too long ago paid between 2,500 and three,500 euros for his or her driving license. Today the ADAC speaks of prices of as much as 4,500 euros in particular person circumstances.
There are many causes for the rise in prices: novice drivers are much less aware of highway site visitors and extra advanced site visitors conditions, which in flip require extra sensible driving hours. Added to this are inflation and better automobile and gas prices. There can also be a scarcity of driving instructors and driving license examiners – a scarcity that in flip drives up personnel prices.
The latter are the principally older males who sit at the back of the automobile to take the driving take a look at of novice drivers and aspiring driving instructors. They are wanted much more urgently as driving instructors. Since the start of the Nineteen Seventies, there have been strict necessities for these inspectors: They should have engineering coaching and be employed by Dekra within the new federal states and by TÜV within the previous federal states. Both establishments have a authorized monopoly. The driving license examiners employed there are ageing and leaving their jobs, and too few are transferring up.
The hole additionally drives up prices as a result of potential examinees typically have to attend a really very long time for examination appointments, particularly in metropolitan areas. During this ready interval, extra refresher driving classes are required in an effort to be match on the time of the take a look at.
The Union parliamentary group due to this fact offered a catalog of measures to the Bundestag on Thursday, twelve measures are proposed. Among different issues, the “integration of all potential” of driving simulators into driving college operations ought to be made doable. According to the “French or Dutch model”, “traffic and dangerous situations” ought to be educated and “theory and practical units” ought to be carefully interlinked. In such simulators, learner drivers might save costly sensible hours, observe driving a shifter or simulate harmful conditions corresponding to animal crossings.
CDU: TÜV’s monopoly place ought to fall
Above all, the Union needs to sort out the scarcity of driving license examiners with three proposals. Firstly, she needs the additional coaching of driving instructors to change into driving examiners to be made simpler. Secondly, the federal authorities, along with the states, also needs to make it doable to briefly admit examiners from the Bundeswehr and the federal and state police in an effort to instantly overcome bottlenecks. Thirdly, TÜV and Dekra ought to lose their monopoly positions – much like when TÜV misplaced its monopoly place generally inspections.
In the Bundestag, SPD transport politician Matthias Stein disputed the effectiveness of the Union measures. “It’s not all that easy” with the associated fee cuts, he mentioned. You need to eradicate “stick by stick” in terms of the advanced situation of driving licenses. Stein prompt, amongst different issues, that practising on site visitors coaching areas might save costly driving classes. In addition, one should “consider” whether or not volunteers, navy service and volunteer service suppliers might obtain subsidies for driving licenses.
The CDU MP Florian Müller, who drafted the appliance, replied to WELT’s question: In the Bundestag’s deliberations, “the effectiveness of our measures was confirmed by experts”. “We can help quickly today with the adoption of the Union concept and ensure that mobility does not become a luxury for young people,” mentioned Müller.
Swantje Michaelsen, rapporteur for driving licenses within the Green group, says on the one hand: Driving license prices haven’t elevated as drastically as described by the Union. The worth for a Class B driving license has risen in recent times “in a way that is comparable to the general cost of living,” Michaelsen informed WELT.
On the opposite hand, Michaelsen additionally refers to his personal measures. According to the Greens, “extended waiting times” and excessive failure charges are a “cost driver”, however worth will increase particularly are resulting from elevated personnel, power, rental and materials prices in driving faculties.
The site visitors mild has lengthy been engaged on eliminating the scarcity of driving license examiners, and measures are additionally deliberate to vary the failure price. “We are revising driver training, expanding the professional requirements for examiners for theoretical and practical tests and working on a solution to expand the current monopoly of TÜV and Dekra in conducting driving license tests,” says Michaelsen.
The FDP factors to the duty of the states
Jürgen Lenders, transport politician within the FDP parliamentary group, whose social gathering has Volker Wissing within the Ministry of Transport, additionally confirmed when requested by WELT: The TÜV monopoly in taking driving exams is “completely out of date”. And given the rising scarcity of expert staff, “the legitimate question arises as to whether an engineering degree is required to take driving tests”. In September, the FDP authorised a movement for a decision that known as on the federal authorities to reform the requirement profiles. It can also be “good that the federal and state governments are discussing this issue in a joint working group on quality issues.”
However, in terms of the liberalization of testing monopolies, the “federal states are now responsible,” mentioned Lenders. “The federal government pushed the issue forward until it was ready for decision in the conference of transport ministers, but it ultimately failed because of the states.”
In reality, the states need to determine on this situation. In the At the transport ministers’ convention originally of October, the query of liberalization remained caught. In the protocol of the choice, the convention of state transport ministers asks the Federal Ministry of Transport to first assessment “the requirements for driving license examiners (entry requirements, training and testing, further training requirements)” earlier than any “restructuring of the driving license test”. In the spring, the federal ministry will first inform itself concerning the “current status” on the state facet.
So there aren’t any noticeable modifications in the intervening time. The Union facet factors out that 4 of the transport ministers within the states come from the Union and three quarters from the site visitors mild events.
The associations that will lose affect within the occasion of a “restructuring” at the moment are additionally protesting. When requested by WELT, the transport coverage spokesman for the Left group within the Bundestag, Bernd Riexinger, mentioned: The proposed liberalization is a harmful “misguided path”. Riexinger continues: “Loss of quality would be inevitable. Verdi and TÜV rightly warned against this in the hearing.”
Instead, the left-wing politician advocates that the Federal Voluntary Service or the voluntary hearth brigades “cover the costs of driving licenses. That would be much more sensible than the Union’s showcase proposals.” In addition, “trainees in the trades, people in home care, social workers or even those in voluntary positions as trainers in sports clubs” would need a driver’s license. “The companies should be held responsible for this.”
The Union solely obtained full help from the AfD. However, in response to WELT’s request, their transport politician Wolfgang Wiehle positioned utterly completely different priorities than these mentioned within the Union proposal. Wiehle mentioned: 42 % of driving college students wouldn’t have handed the speculation take a look at in 2023, and: “The longer the training, the more expensive the driver’s license becomes.” That’s why “first and foremost, there is a need for better communication of traffic topics in and through schools – that But it is a state matter, the federal states have to take action here.” In addition, coaching instances must be streamlined.
The Bundestag group of the Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht left a WELT question on the topic unanswered.
Political editor Jan Alexander Casper experiences on home politics for WELT.
https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article254070358/Debatte-im-Bundestag-Wie-die-Union-die-hohen-Kosten-des-Fuehrerscheins-senken-will.html