Yisrael Katz, the Minister of Transportation, has announced new reforms in the transportation industry. A number of these reforms might be thought of as a big deal for a lot of people.
The reforms include issues such as:
- extending the age of the drivers license to 70 instead of requiring it to be renewed every ten years. Once the driver reaches 70, he or she will have to renew it every 5 years until the age of 80 and then every two years.
- adding more automated machines around the country, called RishyoMat, from the current 50 to the eventual 100. This makes it easier to print licenses and pay fees without having to step into the DMV and wait in line
- providing more DMV services via the post office. nobody really wants to wait in line at the post office either, so I am not sure this is a big deal, but maybe even the post office is better than waiting at the DMV
- installing an appointment system for the DMV
- new DMV offices around the country in cities that until now never had one
- more hours open to the public at the DMV
- and more
- and perhaps the biggest reform for many of the people I know... new immigrants will no longer need to go through the same bureaucracy when coming and converting the foreign license to an Israeli license. Until now new immigrants had to take a lesson and a test. This was basically part of the same scam the entire licensing procedures follow, just to get more money out of people while not necessarily producing better drivers. Now new immigrants will just be able to go to the DMV and convert their valid foreign drivers license to an Israeli license without going through the lesson and test procedure. The foreign license will have to have been valid for at least 5 years in order to be converted like this. this one is a big deal.
There are still a lot of uncertainties and questions as to how this will work, but hopefully that will be cleared up soon. Will it apply to people who have already gone through the procedure and failed the exam - will they now be able to get the Israeli license without further testing or are they up a creek because the failed exam is on their record? Will this apply only going forward or also to new immigrants already here under the old system?
This will ease the pain for many people, and thank you to whomever lobbied to get this done.
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