This story in a Finnish news journal caught my eye – initially because the translated title is ambiguous, saying “Anyone can teach driving a car”.
In fact, the story gets more interesting when you realise that at the moment, driving schools and family members are the only ones who can teach people to drive in Finland. Parents are not even allowed to teach their own kids if they’re not living at the same address.
However, from January next year this is going to change. In theory, anyone will be allowed to teach learners to drive – but police will decide who to award teaching permits to.
The change is actually a common sense one. The family restriction must be hellishly difficult for people in many cases, and it doesn’t really alter the quality of instruction the learner receives. The supervising driver – the Finnish source calls them “instructors”, which is another translation ambiguity – must have held a licence for 3 years, use a training vehicle with secondary brakes fitted, and have passed a special test. The permit granted will last for 9 months (which it does at present).
Even this is far more stringent than what we have in the UK.
The Finnish system will also require that every learner take special training with a proper driving school. The article also implies that more hours will be required, but it doesn’t go into any detail.
What a shame UK politician haven’t got the balls to introduce something even close to this.