District Cancels Most Driving Tests for Two Weeks

Most District residents scheduled to take their driving tests during the next few weeks are being told to reschedule, as the city's DMV experiences a shortage of road test examiners.

News4 has learned most people with tests scheduled between Sept. 24 and Oct. 11 are being told to call 3-1-1, the city's call center, or reschedule their tests online. The testing shutdown will reportedly affect approximately 800 people.

Due to an already-existing backlog, some drivers have waited months to take their driving tests.

Since then, the District DMV has been utilizing the services of nine Virginia road inspectors who have conducted 1,000 tests for D.C. drivers -- the city picked up the tab for their travel, hotel rooms and salaries.

Now, those inspectors have been pulled back to Virginia, leaving D.C. understaffed with just two road test examiners for the whole city.

Lucinda Babers, head of D.C.'s DMV acknowledges the agency isn't fully staffed at the moment.

"We actually did not have the positions available. The mayor did give us permission to create the positions to deal with the issue," Babers said. "We had almost 200 applicants and had to weed through the positions. All those things unfortunately take more than a week or two. Again, I apologize. This is nothing that we wanted to happen. We are working quite diligently to get them back in here as soon as possible."

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