Hassan Nassar, Manager of Dallah Driving Academy
Doha: The unified driving curriculum project launched by the General Directorate of Traffic three months ago aims to complete all stages of driving training in schools electronically from registration to issuance of results.
“The new system will make the traffic department extend its control over theoretical study in addition to (‘L’, parking and road) tests. Till now, some phases not yet completed such as ‘L’, parking and road tests,” said Hassan Nassar, manager of Dallah Driving Academy.
The most important characteristic of the unified curriculum is that it imposes monitoring control on the driving schools in terms of subject of training such as entry and exit and the number of hours a trainee gets training.
Speaking to The Peninsula, Nassar pointed out that the efforts of the General Directorate of Traffic over the past years for developing the mechanism of driving schools has contributed to the reduction of the number of accidents and deaths despite the significant increase of roads as well as number of drivers and cars.
“The new system will contribute to creating a new generation of drivers with a great knowledge of traffic culture having ability to road safety,” he said.
Regarding issue of demand of driving license, he affirmed that despite the inauguration of metro, the demand for licenses is increasing especially for light vehicle license from different nationalities because obtaining a driving license in Qatar is no longer a luxury thing but a need of the labor market.
On complaints regarding long waiting lists in the academy, Nassar said that there are no complaints in this regard in the academy as it has a huge fleet of vehicles up to 500 vehicles working eight hours a day and has an advanced electronic system for registration and scheduling training.
Hassan Nassar, Manager of Dallah Driving Academy, said that recently the academy introduced simulation courses that qualify trainees for driving before practical training and it has completely eliminated long queues. He said that there is 60 to 70 percent success in the academy, which is very high compared to applied standards.
Regarding the professions which are not eligible to apply for the Qatari driving licence, Nassar, said: “So far we have not received information from the General Directorate of Traffic in this regard.” On the issue of training fees, he said that training fees is not high compared to the high operating fees of cars, trainers’ salaries and cost of oil and maintenance. “The fee structure has been stable for a long time and not changed despite the high cost of operation.”
