Training and issuing automatic car driving licenses

For the first time in Vietnam, the testing and granting of automatic car driving licenses is included in the draft of new regulations on training, testing, and granting of road motor vehicle driving licenses, expected to begin implementation from early 2016.

12 days less than learning manual transmission

Specifically, the Ministry of Transport is currently finalizing a draft of a new Circular to replace Circular No. 46/2012/TT-BGTVT dated November 7, 2012 of the Minister of Transport regulating training, testing, and granting of road motor vehicle driving licenses and Circulars amending and supplementing this Circular. The new Circular is expected to take effect from January 1, 2016.

According to the draft, a Class B1 automatic driving license is issued to non-professional drivers to drive automatic cars with up to 9 seats, including the driver's seat; trucks, including specialized trucks with automatic transmission, with a designed load capacity of less than 3,500 kg. People with a Class B1 automatic driving license are not allowed to drive semi-automatic or manual cars.

Also according to the draft, the training time for B1 class drivers and automatic transmission vehicles will be significantly reduced compared to manual transmission vehicles, respectively 476 and 556 hours. Both types have 136 hours of theory but the practice time for driving automatic transmission vehicles is only 340 hours/1 training car, compared to 420 hours for manual transmission vehicles.

Training and licensing for automatic driving vehicles is becoming urgent.

According to regulations, on average, each automatic car has 5 students like a manual car, so the practice time for each student is shortened from 84 hours when learning a manual car to 68 hours with an automatic car. The practice driving distance is also reduced from 100 km to 1,000 km. Thus, to complete a training course, students learning to drive an automatic car will take 476 hours, although the actual study time for each student is only 204 hours.

If calculated by day, learning to drive an automatic car will only take 76.5 days (about 2.5 months, including holidays, opening and closing days), a reduction of 12 days compared to learning to drive a manual car, in which the actual number of study days is reduced by 10 days to 59.5 days.

Responding to Giao thong Newspaper recently, Mr. Nguyen Thang Quan, Director of the Department of Driver Vehicle Management (Vietnam Road Administration - the unit in charge of drafting the new circular) said that the reason why the training time for automatic transmission drivers is reduced compared to manual transmission vehicles is because this type of vehicle does not have a load. In addition, there will be some subjects that students are not required to study as before but can study on their own such as: structure, repair, transportation operations... Regarding the test, if it is an automatic transmission vehicle, the "uphill start" test is not necessary because automatic transmission vehicles do not roll when going uphill, so it will be eliminated. Along with that, training content such as: handling situations where the vehicle stalls and shifting gears will also be eliminated.

However, to ensure the quality and driving skills, the draft has added a parallel parking test (reversing) to ensure compliance with the reality that most automatic cars operate in cities, so parallel parking between two cars requires a lot of skill improvement. Therefore, the content of the automatic driving test will increase by one test compared to manual cars (from 10 tests to 11 tests).

Practice also scores automatically

It is known that when taking the driving license test, the test taker must follow the correct order and drive the vehicle through the tests arranged at the test center such as: starting, stopping the vehicle to give way to pedestrians, stopping and starting the vehicle on a slope, through wheel tracks and perpendicular curves, through intersections with traffic lights, through winding curves, parking (classes B1, B2 and C perform longitudinal parking; classes B1, B2 and D, E perform horizontal parking), stopping at a railway crossing,

In particular, the draft new Circular stipulates that on-road driving practice tests for classes B1, B2, C, D and E must use automatic scoring devices to limit negative and subjective human impacts on test results. Along with that, the new Circular stipulates that examiners must be teachers of driving training facilities (public or non-public) and must have at least 5 years of teaching experience and continuous insurance payment at the training facility where they are working; they are not allowed to test students directly trained by the facility.

It is known that a Class B1 driving license is valid until the driver is 55 years old for women and 60 years old for men; in case the driver is over 45 years old for women and over 50 years old for men, the driving license is issued for a period of 10 years from the date of issue. (The Class B2 driving license remains valid for 10 years as it is now).

According to VnMedia