It must be an unnerving thought to any driver to know that they are sharing the road with a hundred people driving heavy vehicles - who have been falsely certified to drive.
Evidence is appearing that a heavy vehicle assessor was exchanging driving license certification for bribes of up to two thousand dollars - and that in many cases training log books were a sham and the person falsely qualified was not in any way tested.
The danger to others is obvious. It takes judgement and skill to safely control these big rigs at speed on the highways, and getting them safely to their final destination in city traffic requires far more competence than can be learned just driving a car.
Hopefully, the Roads and Maritime services ( RMS ) which is the new name for the old RTA - will be retesting all heavy vehicle drivers certified by this assessor to weed out those without the skill to hold a heavy vehicle license.
This incident also sounds a warning about the temptation that goes hand in hand with the granting of power. Most people are basically honest, but the power to grant a covetted reward brings with it the opportunity to abuse that power in exchange for money.
Just as the skill of the applicant is being tested by the assessor, the honesty of the assessor should be periodically tested to ensure that the necessary standards are being maintained.
It would not be unreasonable for a random percentage of those passed to be retested by senior management. It is a fact of life that power corrupts - and the only way to fight that risk of corruption is to ensure that the risk of exposure is constant.
This incident proves that this safeguard is lacking !
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