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Training ground for novice drivers
Photo: Sergiy Tryapitsyn / PantherMedia / IMAGO
The method with which a man in Rhineland-Palatinate wanted to cheat his way through the theoretical driving test would have fitted well into an agent film.
With a tiny camera, hidden on his body, he broadcast the exam questions in front of him on the screen by radio to an accomplice.
Then he moved the mouse pointer over the possible answers one after the other.
In the case of the correct one, the accomplice signaled the solution to him with a vibrating alarm.
But employees of TÜV Westerburg, who monitored the test, uncovered the fraud and spoke to the man, reported the SWR.
The fraudster then fled, and only the police could seize him and his expensive fraudulent equipment.
The fraud attempt discovered was not an isolated incident.
The methods are quite sophisticated, and the latest technology is used.
Even with tiny inear headphones, other fraudsters let themselves be whispered into the solutions to ancestral questions or the meaning of traffic signs.
The number of uncovered cases has increased sharply in the past five years, reports the "Rheinische Post" now.
The TÜV Rheinland alone uncovered 500 to 600 manipulation attempts.
"The number of unreported cases should be enormous," said spokesman Jörg Meyer of the newspaper.
There are several thousand nationwide.
Up to nine months of suspension instead of six weeks
The federal government is therefore planning tougher sanctions. The Federal Ministry of Transport, together with the Ministry of the Interior, has submitted an ordinance to the Federal Council to amend the Driving License Ordinance and other road traffic regulations. According to this, test subjects who are caught attempting to cheat should in future be banned from a repeat test for up to nine months. The previous deadline of six weeks in the event of an attempted deception was not sufficiently effective, it said.
Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) also wants to reform the acquisition of driving licenses.
There should be more online lessons in driving schools, and electronic driver assistants should also be given greater consideration.
Online theory lessons save journeys, reduce contacts and enable learner drivers to optimally prepare for their driving license despite the pandemic.
Specifically, according to the Ministry of Transport, the concept that has already been discussed with the federal states provides that state authorities can allow digital theory lessons in driving schools in justified exceptional cases.
The extent to which driving school lessons can also be further digitized is being examined.
The regulation also contains rules so that modern driver assistance systems can also be taken into account in the practical test.
Systems such as emergency lane departure warning systems or drowsiness warnings will in future be mandatory for new vehicles in the EU.
joe / AFP
