ENTERTAINMENT
NATION & WORLD
‘Furious 7’ holds onto its lead at the box office The high-octane thriller raced away from the pack with $60.6-million weekend in North America. B7
Taking lead
Hillary Clinton will make run for president
The Nanaimo Clipperss are up 2-0 in the BCHL L Fred Page Cup finals
The wife of former President Bill Clinton announced her intentions to seek the Democratic nomination. A7
Sports, B1
The newspaper of record for Nanaimo and region since 1874 || Monday, April 13, 2015
Road Test
EDUCATION
After decades of driving, ‘Daily News’ reporter Darrell Bellaart gets behind the wheel to find out if he still has what it takes to pass a driving test
District among highest in admin costs ROBERT BARRON DAILY NEWS
‘Daily News’ scribe Darrell Bellaart takes a driving course from Steve Wallace.
[AARON HINKS/DAILY NEWS]
Nervousness, perspiration heavy in drivers’ exam DARRELL BELLAART DAILY NEWS
I
knew I’d failed the second I stopped the car on top of the crosswalk. I took the ICBC driver reexamination road test as a personal challenge to the claim seniors driving tests are unfair. I went into the examination brimming with confidence. Forty-five minutes later I was eating humble pie. Now let me point out I am a pretty good driver. My examiner, Steve Wallace of Wallace Driving School, said so himself several times during the testing. But the experience confirmed something Wallace tells anyone facing a driver examination: Road tests are not as much about driving skills as a test of a driver’s observational skills. At 80, B.C, drivers must see a doctor for a medical examination report to determine their fitness to drive. The examination is required every two years after that. If there are concerns, RoadSafety B.C. will either make a decision on the driver’s licence or order a test. I got my Class 5 licence in Calgary in 1977. While my shortterm memory isn’t as good as it
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was 20 years ago, I’ve still got a described the two types of testway to go before ICBC requires ing available in B.C.: the privateorders me to go for retesting. ly-run DriveAble examination, Why did I take the test? which he said is extremely difI contacted driving instructor ficult, especially for seniors with Steve Wallace almost a low computer skills, month ago, after readand the ICBC road test, ing something he’d told which 50 per cent of a colleague in a Daily drivers can beat “with News interview, on the preparation.” topic of seniors road testIt was the test I was ing. Wallace, the CEO of about to take, but I was Wallace Driving School, still confident I’d easily told reporter Spencer pass it. I aced my taxi Anderson senior driver licence at age 21, so how testing is unfair. hard could it be? “I could test you tomor- Darrell Behind the wheel, the Bellaart row and you would fail,” simplistic Toyota Prius he said. dashboard was strangeReporting That was a red flag for ly intimidating. me. “Just press the but“I’ll show him,” I ton,” he said, pointing thought as I picked up the to the round ignition phone and called his office. switch on the dash. He was more than willing to Then, noticing my confused oblige when I asked to take the look, he instructed me move the test. At his driving school, I tiny stick-shift over and down found myself sitting through into the “D” position. a session on the importance of After carefully checking both preparation for testing — even mirrors and a quick glance left, I for experienced drivers. That’s prepared to pull away. when I felt the first twinge of “Did you shoulder check?” he nervousness. I searched my asked. “I thought I did,” came my memory each time I heard Walembarrassed reply. lace use the term “360-check,” The test hadn’t started yet and nothing was coming up. He and already I was starting to
perspire. We pulled away and headed to Woodgrove Centre, for a warmup parking exercise. After watching me confidently merge into busy traffic on the Parkway, he gave his assessment: “Watch the gaps in traffic, not the cars,” he told me. That threw me for a loop. I’d been merging into traffic since I age 19, and considered myself an expert. At Woodgrove, I dutifully parked in a pull-through spot, so I could pull away safely later. When I did go, I remembered to do a 360-check. If, like me, you learned to drive in the Pleistocene era, you can be excused for wondering what this is. By now Wallace had given me a crash course: Left, left mirror, ahead, rear-view mirror, right, then right mirror and eyes back on the road. Simple, huh? I had mentally digested this while maneuvering through mid-day highway traffic, and now, I was trying to file this away and make it part of my almost 40 years of driving experience. It was consuming a lot of CPU power in my shrinking, though not-yet senior brain. See ROAD TEST, Page A5
Local turntablist aims to pass along lessons
VIBI Mariners jump Coyotes for third place
Peter ‘DJ All Good’ Poole wants to turn his mobile DJ unit, The Turntemple, into a pop-up community centre to introduce different music to youth in Nanaimo. » Nanaimo Region, A3
With a 3-1 record over the Okanagan Coyotes, the Vancouver Island Baseball Institue Mariners gained some ground in Canadian Collegiate Baseball Conference play. » Sports, B2
Local news .................... A3-6 Community calendar .....A2 Nation & World ................. A7
Editorials and letters ..... A4 Sports ................................... B1 Scoreboard ........................ B4
Classified ............................ B6 Obituaries ........................... B6 Comics ................................. B5
The Nanaimo-Ladysmith school district has the second-highest costs for administration out of eight similar-sized districts in the province, according to a report tabled by acting secretary treasurer Graham Roberts. Roberts also indicated that Nanaimo-Ladysmith has the second-lowest costs for teachers’ wages out of the districts that are compared in the report. The report was prepared to provide financial information to the school board comparing spending patterns in Nanaimo-Ladysmith to other districts as the board prepares to table a budget for 2015-16 while facing a shortfall of approximately $4 million. About 90 per cent of the district’s annual budget, which was $135 million in 2014-15, goes to wages and benefits. Roberts’s report indicates that overall spending on wages for teachers, excluding substitutes, in Nanaimo-Ladysmith makes up 87.4 per cent of all the wages in the district, while the provincial average is 88.7 per cent. The highest in the survey is Delta at 90.3 per cent, while the lowest is Prince George at 87.2 per cent. The survey also shows that administrative wages total 3.6 per cent of the overall wages in Nanaimo-Ladysmith, while the provincial average is 3.1 per cent. Prince George, at approximately 3.7 per cent, is the highest for administrative wages, while Delta has the lowest administrative wages at 2.4 per cent. The district’s administration has increased in recent years after a major and controversial restructuring process. Board chairman Steve Rae said the board has asked Roberts to provide more information. “Different districts have different cost structures that determine what costs go where,” Rae said. “It’s like a shell game in many cases so we asked staff to drill more into the details and report back.” RBarron@nanaimodailynews.com 250-729-4234
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