by Foong Swee Fong

The article, “Driving schools fully booked for months; some students paying bots to secure limited lesson slots” by Channel News Asia, encapsulates all that is wrong with Singapore.

The reason why students can’t get slots is because the “police stopped issuing private driving instructor licences in 1987 when the first two driving schools were set up”.

The police cited coordination and safety reasons.

In 1987, there were “thousands of them” but today “the country only has about 300 private driving instructors” as those who retired were not replaced.

With the gradual reduction of private driving instructors, students have little choice but to patronize the two main driving centres.

Thus, their business is booming not because they are providing excellent service at a competitive rate but because their main competitors – private driving instructors – are being reduced with each passing year, eventually to zero.

Singaporeans should be incensed because what the authorities did is anti-competitive and disadvantageous to them, but not surprisingly, this being Singapore, they brushed it aside, accepting it, perhaps, as the price of progress.

It is becoming a recurring trend: Big Business working hand in glove with the government to subvert the free market.

For crying out loud! The police “stopped issuing private driving instructor licenses WHEN the two driving schools were set up!” How blatant must it get before people start waking up?

While ComfortDelGro Driving Centre is part of the publicly listed ComfortDelGro Corporation, which is commonly perceived as government-linked, Bukit Batok Driving Centre is majority-owned by large corporate entities including Honda Motor Co, Kah Motors, and Income Insurance Ltd.

The CNA article then quoted young Singaporeans who say they still want to learn driving despite the skyrocketing COE prices “due to the convenience and option of renting a vehicle” from car-sharing companies.

It then relates the positive experience of a 22-year-old national serviceman, Calvert Choo, with car-sharing companies, about the price of rental and its convenient location near his HDB block, about Tribecar and GetGo, ending by saying that other reasons for learning to drive
include working in the ride-hailing and delivery industry.

I can’t help but sense that Big Business, with the government, is again trying to subvert the market:

In 2012, taxis were exempted from the COE bidding process to prevent them from driving up Category A COE prices. Instead, they pay the Prevailing Quota Premium, which is the average of the previous three months’ Category A prices at the point of purchase, with their COEs sourced from the Open Category. This arrangement acknowledges that taxi companies are using passenger cars for commercial purposes unlike private car owners, and that they can outbid private car owners.

However, recent trends have seen Private Hire Vehicles (PHVs), car-sharing companies, and even driving schools pushing passenger car COE prices higher, echoing the earlier situation with taxi companies. A simple solution would be to extend the taxi model to these groups. Yet, this approach has not been adopted, and authorities have instead proposed unrealistic solutions.

If COE prices remain elevated, average and even above-average-income drivers will be priced out of the market, forcing them to use PHVs and car-sharing vehicles.

Is this another diabolical scheme to force the people to patronize certain businesses, just like student drivers have now to patronize driving schools?

There are numerous worrisome alliances between Big Business and the Government in our country. They are using fewer generic medicines compared to many other countries in the region, which may contribute to higher healthcare costs. Some have raised concerns about the influence of patented medicines within the healthcare system, potentially increasing overall medical expenses.

As a measure of how preposterous the situation has become, the said CNA article, which in fact is propaganda and free advertisement for the respective big businesses, is published by state-owned MediaCorp, thus paid for by the people, to brainwash themselves!

The Big Business-Government cancer has spread deep and wide. By subverting the free market, resources will be mis-allocated, the poor will be poorer, a large chunk of the middle class will become the new poor, and the rich will be richer, thus tearing society apart.

A Reddit thread has surfaced in response to a Channel News Asia (CNA) article published on 12 September, which highlighted the growing problem of internet bots being used to book practical driving lessons in Singapore.

The CNA article points out that driving schools like the Singapore Safety Driving Centre, ComfortDelGro Driving Centre, and Bukit Batok Driving Centre are struggling to manage the post-pandemic surge in sign-ups, with waiting times now stretching from two to six months for practical lessons.

Redditors highlight deeper issues beyond bots

While the CNA article focused on the ethical concerns of bot usage and the efforts by schools like ComfortDelGro to mitigate these activities through CAPTCHA and AI algorithms, Redditors argue that the real issue lies in the limited capacity of driving schools, which has remained stagnant for years despite the growing demand.

One Redditor summed up the issue succinctly: “I think the problem is very clear, and it’s not the bots. Despite the growth in population size and the number of lanes on the road, I don’t think our driving school capacity has increased much over the last 2 decades.”

This view reflects a shared frustration with the limited availability of lessons, rather than the bots being the core problem.

Intentional restrictions?

Another thread participant speculated that these capacity limitations might be intentional, aligning with Singapore’s long-standing goal of becoming a car-lite society.

This commenter remarked: “I thought this was intentional to make it harder to learn to drive. Coupled with the fact that they’ve stopped giving out new private driving instructor licenses since forever.”

This sentiment resonated with other Redditors, who pointed out that restricting driving access through such methods might be an indirect way of discouraging car ownership without implementing more obvious or direct measures.

A common theme throughout the discussion was the call for more private driving instructors, as their dwindling numbers have exacerbated the problem. The CNA article notes that Singapore stopped issuing new licenses for private driving instructors in 1987, and only around 300 private instructors remain today.

Redditors expressed frustration over this restriction, with one saying: “Opening the doors for more private driving instructors would solve a lot of this crazy pent-up demand… I can’t understand why TP [Traffic Police] refuses to consider this when their 3 authorized schools are run like a shitshow.”

Others echoed this call, questioning why the private route isn’t expanded when the schools are clearly overwhelmed.

The CNA article reported that bots are used to snap up slots when other learners cancel bookings, often leaving regular students scrambling to secure lessons.

Many Redditors shared their personal frustrations with the booking systems, with one user stating: “I remember many years back when I took my lessons, it was already very hard to book… In the end I wrote a script to help me to book lessons and I could complete in a much shorter timeframe.”

Another user mentioned: “I enrolled in February, it’s September now, and I can’t even get a single slot for my 3A.”

These anecdotes reflect a widespread sense of exasperation with a system that many feel has not adapted to meet current demand.

Allegations of inefficiency

Some Redditors also questioned whether driving schools have any incentive to resolve these issues, accusing them of benefiting from drawn-out processes and high fees.

One participant commented: “The school instructors have no relationship with the student and are paid to just go through lessons like a robot rather than concentrating on the student’s weaknesses. Meanwhile the school has an incentive to drag the process out as long as possible to collect as much fees as possible.”

This view paints a picture of inefficiency and potential exploitation, adding to the frustrations of those trying to obtain their driving licenses.

The broader impact of Singapore’s car-lite policy

Several Redditors tied the bot controversy to Singapore’s broader push for a car-lite society, with one remarking: “They’re probably thinking: it’s part of the system to discourage cars on the road… TP failed lots of people, that’s why they have so much backlog.”

Some users felt that discouraging people from learning to drive could lead to long-term issues, with one suggesting that the difficulty in obtaining a license might ultimately reduce the number of private hire vehicles (PHVs) on the road: “All this is doing in the long run is making taxis extinct faster and possibly creating an issue years from now where there aren’t enough PHVs around because most Singaporeans gave up learning how to drive.”

The Reddit thread responding to the CNA article reveals that many Singaporeans believe the issues with booking driving lessons run deeper than just bots.

The root causes—limited capacity, intentional restrictions, and inefficiency—are seen as part of a broader challenge in Singapore’s car-lite ambitions.

Redditors are calling for reforms, such as more private instructors and greater transparency, to address the growing frustrations around learning to drive in Singapore.