Charity drive delights, but Serco strikes out badly

Ian Law

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

BEST Moment

Raising funds for the James Fund of the Hospital for Sick Children through our Exotic Car Ride Charity day is an annual highlight.

We provided rides on an Autoslalom course to the public for a donation to The James Fund with help from the Viper Club of Ontario, GTA Exotic Car Rentals and the owners of many different high performance sports cars, including Craig Riley of Markville Ford who brought out his gorgeous Ford GT.

From Aston Martin to Lotus to Viper, we had a great collection of exotics for the public to choose from.

All the hard work from our many volunteers, instructors and drivers, and the tremendous effort in organizing the event is repaid a thousand times over in the smiles from the paying passengers as they realized a dream.

With much support from the Powerade Centre, Jones Brown Insurance and Pizza Pizza, we raised more than $3,000 for the James Fund.

Best of all, though, is the smile on the faces of some of the children suffering from neuroblastoma as they got a once-in-a-lifetime chance to ride in the car of their dreams.

Worst Moment

The Serco strike that has virtually closed down the driver examination centres throughout Ontario is easily my worst automotive-related experience of 2009. Although it appears to be finally settled, the damage done and the problems to come are bound to result in motoring troubles for many more years.

On the business side, many driving schools have closed down or are on the verge of going out of business simply because new drivers were hesitant to book lessons if no testing was occurring. This not only had a negative impact on those driving schools, but also on my own.

We get a lot of requests from parents who are looking to give their teenagers more than just a "regular" driving school. These parents want more than a successful driver's test for their kids. They want them to be the safest drivers possible.

That was where we came in with our Car Control Schools. As the strike dragged on through the summer and fall, new drivers were not booking lessons and parents weren't demanding that extra education and that hurt us a lot, too.

On a personal side, I'm terrified that, because of all the new drivers wanting a licence, the already low standard of testing will be reduced further to clear the massive backlog. What do we face in the near future as the examiners are pushed to their limits to process as many new drivers as possible? Will they drop their threshold for passing or turn a blind eye to some mistakes so a re-test will not take up any further time?

I fear this lengthy strike will generate at least a year's worth of new motorists with a dangerous lack of driving skills.

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