The Cordillera office of the land Transportation Office (LT-CAR) warned administrators of various driving schools in the different parts of the region to put a stop on their questionable transactions with their students to prevent the imposition of stiffer penalties against them that would eventually result to the closure of their institutions in the future.
LTO-CAR regional director Francis Ray Almora disclosed that his office had been receiving various reports on the alleged questionable transactions with their students, especially the alleged packing of their services, which is now the subject of an ongoing investigation to ascertain the veracity of the said reports.
“We want to send a clear message that if we find out that such reports on the alleged packaging of services of driving schools is true, we will not hesitate to impose the appropriate penalties against the administrators of driving schools where such practice is being done regardless of whether or not the owners are aware of the same,” Director Almora stressed.
The LTO-CAR official claimed that driving schools even reportedly charge excessive fees from their students when they avail of the said packaged services which is rather unfair and will not help their enrollees learn the appropriate discipline in driving, thus, the need to close the operation of such institutions once the said reports will be validated to be true and rampant.
Among the reported packaged services of driving schools in the region include the creation of the account of the driving student in the Land Transportation Management Information System (LTMS) portal, the making of passwords in the said account, the taking of the examination for the issuance of driver’s license and other available services with alleged exorbitant fees.
He encouraged victims of the said questionable transactions being entered into by driving schools to support the ongoing investigation by attesting to the truth of said practices by the driving schools so that the erring institutions will be spelled with the appropriate penalty to ensure that the same will not be emulated by other driving schools operating in the different parts of the region.
According to him, the cooperation of the victims of the said questionable transactions of the driving schools is needed to correct the said malpractices by the said institutions as early as possible so that it will not worsen as the same will defeat the purpose of having introduced reforms in the operation of the said driving schools and to bring back the trust and confidence of applicants for issuance of driver’s licenses to the schools where they intend to take their theoretical and practical driving courses.
Director Almora appealed to applicants for the issuance of driver’s license to strictly adhere to the prescribed processes before they will be issued the same by the LTO to avoid the prevalence of erring drivers on rods who might be the cause of untoward incidents that may compromise the safety of life and limb and worst would result to loss of innocent lives in the future.
He stipulated that the LTO-CAR will not hesitate to impose the stiffest penalty against the driving schools that will be uncovered to be engaging in questionable transactions with their driving students to teach them a lesson ont to repeat such offenses in the future because the same might result to the permanent closure of their institutions and the blacklisting of their names from the agency to prevent them from entering into similar business activity in the future.
