The delay to access the practical driving license test in Ibiza has suffered a sharp drop from more than three months to about a month and a half. However, this improvement does not respond to an increase in resources on the part of the Administration, but to an internal adjustment of the sector: “Now what we do is not to take the student until we foresee that we can possibly examine him/her”, explained the president of the Balearic Association of Driving Schools, Joana Ribas.
This organizational change means that applicants are not trapped in long waits once they have completed their internships. ” This way they lose neither money nor time,” Ribas pointed out in an interview with Radio Ibiza. In addition, he recalled that there are more than 7,000 students on the island pending a date and that the figure has reached more than 8,000.
The call for more examiners in Ibiza
Despite the decrease in the deadline, the structural bottleneck continues. The island still does not have permanent examiners and relies on staff transferred from Mallorca. This situation, warns Ribas, causes continuous uncertainties: “Flights are always delayed or cancelled, and if the examiner does not arrive, the exam cannot be done”.
The president insists that the solution is simple and well-known: two examiners permanently stationed in Ibiza. “With two examiners in Ibiza, the island would be totally independent,” she says. However, he assures that the Administration “turns a deaf ear” and that the main reason is the high cost of housing on the island: “Who comes to Ibiza on a civil servant’s salary? It is not even enough to pay the rent”.
Ribas also denounces the progressive dismantling of the DGT office in Ibiza. According to him, the head office no longer handles exam-related paperwork: “The Ibiza office does not do a single exam paperwork; it has transferred everything to Palma,” which adds to the dependency and slowness.
Nor will the recently announced incorporation of 101 new examiners in Spain, of which seven will go to the Balearic Islands, have any real impact on the island. “One is coming, but he’s going to Menorca. We stay as we are,” he laments.
With a view to the new European regulations that will make it possible to obtain the license from the age of 17, Ribas considers that the only critical moment will be the first year, when two generations coincide: “In that first year we will have 17-year-olds and 18-year-olds at the same time,” although he is confident that the increase in the number of teachers resulting from the new vocational training program will make it possible to handle the volume.
The president appreciates another novelty: the possibility of taking the test with an automatic car and obtaining a manual driving license after additional training. “I think it’s pretty good. It’s a step forward towards new technologies,” she says.
Ribas concludes by recalling the need to improve the safety of motorcyclists, a group particularly affected in Ibiza. ” On a motorcycle the chassis is you,” he warns, and denounces the normalization of riding without the mandatory clothing: shorts, flip-flops or without a jacket.
