Toronto, Ontario — With roughly 400,000 road tests cancelled in Ontario due to the pandemic, some G1 drivers are getting frustrated.
In a video posted Monday to the Toronto Police Traffic Unit TikTok, Cst. Sean Shapiro said that three accidents involving G1 drivers had been recorded, all within a 24-hour period.
“Three drivers that should never have been alone in a car and lacked the experience to operate a motor vehicle alone were involved with and caused three motor vehicle collisions,” said Shapiro.
Provincial Police have noticed fewer traffic collisions in 2020 largely because people are travelling less due to the pandemic, however, fewer vehicles on the road didn’t mean fewer fatalities. Fatality rates were up 22 percent from 2019. Police say that among the deaths 55 were due to lack of seatbelt use, 62 were because of speed, 51 were associated with alcohol or drug use.
Over half of Ontario’s 400,000 road test cancellations were called off in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), and according to a driving instructor based in the GTA, Azhar Malik, who spoke with CBC Toronto, the backlog of the driving tests won’t be cleared until 2022. Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) said they were going to hire 84 new drive test examiners to help speed the process up, but they have so far only hired 35 examiners.
