The driver’s license scandals have come one after another during the last decade in Colorado. Details have varied, but certain themes are familiar: People go through so-called third-party testers, present falsified tests or credentials and get a driver’s license they shouldn’t have.
The result has been a pattern of unqualified driver’s getting the gold standard of identification.
The latest chapter in this tale unfolded this week when the state Department of Revenue shut down Ola’s Driving School, a third-party tester, and said 1,108 people who had tested there would have to test again.
The accusations are familiar, as is Ola’s, since the school was accused of similar activity in the past. Investigators contend Sikiru A. “Ola” Fadeyi took money and certified that students had taken written tests when they hadn’t.
State government has taken its lumps over the years for lax procedures where issuing driver’s licenses is concerned, and we’re not letting them off the hook for that.
However, it’s clear to us there’s a more deep-seated problem at work, one of resources. The state does not have enough people watching Colorado’s third-party testers. Only four state Division of Motor Vehicles auditors are employed to oversee 185 third-party driving schools. These schools administer 30 percent of the state’s road tests.
DMV auditors are responsible for mandatory annual audits of each, a requirement that leaves them little time to truly investigate operations or delve into complaints.
How did we get to a point in Colorado where we’ve outsourced such a large portion of what traditionally has been a government function?
It is a direct effect of cuts that legislators have made over the last decade to balance the state budget.
You might be asking yourself what the harm is in having a relative handful of people on the road who don’t speak English so well or didn’t exactly follow procedures to get their licenses. The scandal that unfolded in 2004 and 2005 provides a glimpse of how these matters can play out.
More than two dozen students of a Weld County truck-driving school who got their commercial driver’s licenses illegally later were blamed for 199 traffic and regulatory violations, including 26 accidents, according to federal court documents.
All went through a third-party tester and a crooked DMV clerk to get their undeserved credentials.
Enough is enough. State legislators ought to ask the DMV to carefully study what it would take, in terms of manpower and cost, to properly oversee third-party testers. And they ought to investigate ways of paying for it, such as fees levied upon third-party testers or their students.
The stakes are too high to let this cycle continue.
