There are problems that, no matter how much we talk about them, remain there, perennial, waiting without success for someone to solve them. An example? Rodalies of Catalonia. Other? The deficit of examiners from the General Directorate of Traffic (DGT) to cover the demand of those who want to take the practical exam to obtain a driving license (whether for a car, motorcycle, truck or bus). In Barcelona and the province, for example, the waiting time to be examined is between two and three months. “Around 48,500 people are waiting,” warns Alejandro Requena, member of the Barcelona Driving Schools Federation (FAB).
Víctor (22 years old and from Barcelona) can feel lucky. He is somewhat below average: he hasn't had to wait that long. Still, he seems dissatisfied. He is getting his motorcycle license (A2) and has taken the pilot test on two occasions, both with negative results. The first was carried out on October 24. The second, almost a month later: November 16. After that second suspension, he asked for a new date. They have given it for January 9.
“For me, from October 24 to November 16 there were already too many days of separation. I would have gone before, when I still had the feel of the motorcycle. Well, imagine how I am with the new date of January 9. How can it be?,” she asks. She explains that she will have no choice “but to do more practices just before the date of the new exam,” as she did with the second one. He feels wronged. And not only because of the practices that he will have to do (and the cost that they will entail), but because he understands that he would have had more options to pass if the exams had been much closer in time. Now, in addition, he will have to renew the file: “200 euros more. "It's exasperating."
The problem of waiting lists – they explain from the sector – affects all of Spain. But especially to Catalonia, and in particular to Barcelona (city and province). There are many reasons. To begin with, the lack of examiners. “Being part of the general body of the State, they earn the same throughout Spain, but housing in Barcelona is very expensive. They don't want to come here,” argues Fernando Lara, vice president of the National Association of Driving Schools of Spain (Anaes). “In parallel, Catalans do not usually prepare for competitive exams for the central State, they do so for the Generalitat, where they will surely win more,” he adds.
The figures corroborate that, certainly, there is not much demand to become an examiner in Barcelona. This is demonstrated by the places that were vacant in the last competition, the resolution of which was published in the BOE at the end of last November. Between Barcelona city and province, 11 places were offered: eight were left unfilled.
“An examiner who works in Malaga, for example, can live well. Here, there are them sharing a flat,” argues Alejandro Requena, a member of the FAB and owner of the driving school that bears his name. “In addition, there are several examiners here, between 6 and 8, who have requested the transfer. “They want to leave.”
And this situation - warns Fernando Lara - occurs in a context in which examiners are retiring - and are not replaced - and the oppositions "are called every two years." “There has always been a deficit of examiners and the fault lies with the administration,” he says.
Sources from the DGT explain to La Vanguardia that the lack of this professional profile "is specific in some traffic headquarters, not in the entire territory" and that the organization "has been making a very important effort to improve the staff of examiners."
They defend that they have managed to have "interim examining personnel due to the accumulation of tasks and vacancies." From the sector, they confirm the presence of these interim personnel, but they describe the measure as a "patch." It is not a solution," defends Requena.
He explains that a city like Barcelona would need a minimum of 6,500 exams to be carried out every ten days (the tests are called every eight working days, but there is always a weekend in between). But that figure is not reached. “We stayed at about 5,500. In other words, we have a deficit of 1,000 for each call. And this accumulates, the plug becoming bigger and bigger.”
He argues that the Traffic Department works by capacity - "they have so many examiners, so many students are examined" - and that it distributes among the driving schools the number of students that it can absorb in the next exam according to the theoretical pass pool that each one has. of them.
“If you have a small driving school, you have a problem,” says Requena. Because? Because every ten days you can take the exam 2, 3 or 4 candidates at most, she asserts. “It's like having a restaurant with ten tables, having the material to serve them and having someone tell you no, you can only serve five.”
The thing goes through neighborhoods anyway. An owner of a Barcelona driving school - small (he has two cars) and who prefers to remain anonymous - explains that they are satisfied with the quota of places assigned by the DGT. Of course, he understands that if instead of having two cars he had a third, it is possible that the places granted would be insufficient. In any case, he subscribes to the majority opinion: there is a lack of examiners.
And also teachers, he adds. "It's a drama. “There is no offer.” He says that he has a waiting list of up to three months to be able to offer practical classes to students who have passed the theory. And it is not an exclusive problem of yours. The same thing happens to Zona F, a well-known driving school in Barcelona. Adrià (21 years old) knows it well. He is getting his B license, the car license. In July he passed the theory, but it was not until last week that he began the internship. He is glad to have started them and doesn't want to think now about the possible wait time he will have to face when he is ready to take the exam.
The responsibility for announcing vacancies for teaching staff in Catalonia is the Servei Català de Trànsit (SCT), but it has been "for a long time without announcing them while in Spain there was an annual call," denounces the owner of the driving school who prefers not to reveal its identity. He himself went to Zaragoza – “like hundreds of other teachers from Barcelona”, he says – to obtain the degree.
Alejandro Requena affirms that "it has been years" since the SCT has not announced positions, which grant (if obtained) a certificate of aptitude (as the DGT does outside of Catalonia) so that the interested party can work as a driving school teacher. However, there is a novelty that could solve the shortage of instructors in the medium term: the recent appearance of a higher degree in safe and sustainable mobility – “which is far above the certificate of aptitude,” Requena emphasizes – which lasts two years and that trains the graduate as a driving school director and teacher. “In addition, you are a senior technician in mobility and road safety, that is, you can work as a mobility technician in a town hall, a company and teach classes, for example, on road safety in an institute,” says Requena.
This degree could alleviate the lack of teachers, while the deficit of examiners could be compensated – according to Requena and Lara – by adopting the Portuguese model. “In Portugal they have a public part (official exam centers that are part of the administration itself) and a private part, and you can take the exam wherever you want,” explains Lara. “The price – he continues – is the same. Furthermore, both routes have identical validity. The advantage of the private option is that the process is faster,” she adds. “If it is done in Portugal, an EU member like Spain, why can't it be done here?” concludes Requena.
