DriveWise Canada now approved as trainer in Toronto’s Vehicle for Hire program
DriveWise Canada’s president Lesley de Repentigny Photo: DriveWise
DriveWise Canada has been selected as the second training company approved to deliver the City of Toronto’s Vehicle for Hire program.
“We are pretty excited to have been selected,” Lesley de Repentigny, DriveWise’s president told Taxi News on June 3rd. “It’s good news for us, but also for drivers and people in Toronto, to have trained drivers on the road.
“We worked with the City to revise our program and ensure it includes all the elements Toronto was looking for; now, we are officially approved and opened up enrollment for the first class, which will begin on June 21st.”
DriveWise’s Vehicle for Hire 8-hour training program will use a combination of classroom and simulator training. The firm has reached an agreement with the Canadian Legion to use some of its branch locations as training sites; the Legion’s halls will be used for classroom training while a 53’ trailer with two simulation training units will be parked in the parking lot. The first training location will be in west-end Toronto with other locations planned in the months ahead.
Toronto’s estimate of the number of Vehicle for Hire drivers who will be required to complete training is 50,000; the first training company approved, AMB Driving School, reports that it has been processing 70-75 drivers per day since its program launched in early May.
DriveWise partners with almost 100 organizations including Canada Post and Rogers to train their drivers across Canada and has been developing industry-specific training programs since 2004. DeRepetigny, who is a veteran of the armed forces and whose training career was launched training on flight simulator technology, is enthusiastic about the benefits of this training for Vehicle for Hire drivers:
“In a car, the instructor has five things to think about related this his or her own safety in the vehicle before they can think about training,” she points out. “In the simulator, not only can we design situations to test the driver’s ability, but we can replay it for them to watch so they can catch and correct their own mistakes. The instructor is totally focused on only one thing, and that is the driver’s performance.”
DriveWise has partnered with Baird MacGregor Insurance Brokers, where it has been training and assessing Taxi drivers for since 2013.
Detailed information about training and registration for the June 21st program is now available on DriveWise’s website, here.
