Waimea Weekly
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Your Community Newspaper
Wednesday 6 February 2013
Horses locked out
Now Op en Tigers on Eve nings the hunt
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Eye test has driver seeing double Phillip Rollo A learner driver was told she could not sit her restricted licence test after failing an eye screening test at the Nelson AA, only to pass the same test in Richmond just hours later. But David McLister, the AA driver and vehicle licensing general manager, says four people have checked both machines and that they are working “correctly”. The 18 year old woman from Richmond,
who did not want to be named, booked her restricted licence practical test online and was told to be there 30 minutes prior. But because there was a large queue of customers, the girl only had ten minutes to spare when she was served at the counter. “Because it’s a simple test they get you to go through a couple of things and she failed me straight away. There was supposed to be three columns of letters but I could only see two,” she says. Once the eye test was completed and
failed, the woman was told there was not enough time to put the driving examination on hold as she intended to get a clearance from a local optometrist. She was then informed she would have to pay an extra $88 to re-book the driving test – a fee that was later cleared by the AA when they sent out a voucher and an apology. “I had to wait in line for so long so by the time they told me I had failed it was 12:40pm and the test was at 12:45pm. I found an optometrist that could get me in right then
but they couldn’t hold out. They said I had to be there at 12:45pm or I couldn’t sit it.” She was given the option of a second eye test, but again the results were the same. On her way home, knowing she had passed the exact same eye test at the Richmond AA agency just a year prior when obtaining her learners licence, she walked in and requested an eye test – which she passed perfectly. “I was so mad. I was already so SEE PAGE 2
Computers compulsory at Garin, is Waimea next?
John Boyce, the head teacher of Garin College, believes it is just a matter of time before most other schools in Nelson follow its lead and make computers compulsory for students. The decile eight catholic school made laptops and other personal computing devices compulsory for all year nine students this year – a decision which is already being labelled a success. “This is the way of the world. I would expect every other secondary school to be in some form of this next year,” he says. “They will make trials this year with half classes so they’ll only be a year off.” Garin College student Jordan Eskine-Barron, 13, works on his laptop during class. Garin College made computers compulsory for all year nine students this year. Photo: Phillip Rollo.
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