The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous.
“We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office.
“In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations more thoroughly,” he said.
Photo courtesy of the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office
The Highway Bureau would also exclude questions that could be answered easily, he added.
The bureau gave as an example a question asking if it is correct that drivers should reduce speed and be prepared to stop when their vision is hindered by heavy rain.
The new policy governing the issuance of a driver’s license is part of the reforms that the ministry had proposed after a 78-year-old driver hit pedestrians and scooter riders near a school in New Taipei City, killing three people and injuring 12.
Photo: CNA
Aside from lowering the age for elderly drivers to renew their license to 70 from 75, the ministry said it would change the driver’s license test and would ask those who frequently contravene traffic regulations to receive additional training.
The written test for car drivers contains 40 questions, while that for motorcyclists has 50 questions, Highway Bureau Director-General Chen Wen-juei (陳文瑞) said.
In both tests, half of the questions instruct test takers to identify whether a statement is true or false, while the other half are multiple-choice questions, he said.
“People have a 50 percent chance to guess the correct answer in true-or-false questions, which makes it difficult to determine if they truly understand traffic regulations. We are considering eliminating all true-or-false questions and administering tests with multiple-choice questions only,” Chen Wen-juei said, adding that test takers would be required to choose an answer from four choices instead of three.
The question bank for the car license exam has 1,400 questions, while that for the motorcycle license exam has 1,600 questions, the bureau said, adding that it would remove easy questions, which more than 90 percent of test takers answer correctly, from the question banks.
“We are not making the written test so difficult that nobody can get their license. We hope the test can differentiate between varying levels of driving competence,” Chen Wen-juei said.
The new license test is scheduled to be implemented next year.
About 549,000 people take license tests for cars and motorcycles every year.
The pass rate for the written test for a car license is about 85 percent, while that of motorcycle license is about 70 percent, bureau data showed.
About 70 percent of people taking the car license exam pass both the written and driving tests, while 50 to 60 percent of those taking the motorcycle exam pass both tests, the data showed.
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