Map of the Week: Driver testing

COLIN MCCONNELL/TORONTO STAR

A story by reporter Daniel Dale in Sunday's paper looked at the wildly varying failure rates at driver test centres:

Ontario drivers who take their road tests in Brampton fail at nearly five times the rate of drivers in Sault Ste. Marie.

Drivers who test in Oakville fail at twice the rate of drivers in Kingston. Drivers who test in north Toronto fail at twice the rate of drivers in Sarnia. Even within the GTA, drivers who test at some locations fail significantly more often than drivers at others.

The rumours that have circulated for years among the province's driver's ed students are correct: there is indeed such a thing as a relatively easy or relatively difficult place to take a road test, government figures obtained via a freedom of information request confirm.

Dale's data (link (.pdf)) lends itself well to online mapping. Here is a map of Ontario's 55 driver testing centres, ranked in order by failure rate.

Comments

[Colin W]

I almost didn't believe there were relatively "easy places" to take a driver's test until someone told me that was exactly what she did - she went north of TO. For whatever reason I figured the test were "standardized", but considering the mayhem on the roads, I really shouldn't be surprised that some people who passed probably should either 1) still be taking drivers ed, or 2) shouldn't have passed.

[Electric Landlady]

Slightly off topic, but I thought you might be interested in this: http://www.kalimedia.com/Atlas_of_True_Names.html

[Toronto Star]

Hi, Electric Landlady -

We were thinking along similar lines, as you can see from the next post. I've been out of the office all week, and had it set to publish today.

[Driver Education]

Hi,

The traffic schools feature how to drive safely while also teaching traffic laws and rules. One can look in their local phone book to find a traffic school in their area.

Thanks
Laura.

[Learners Permit]

I can see that you put a lot of hard work on your blog, I’m sure I’d visit here more often.Great job, keep posting interesting articles here. All The Best.