Transport Minister Dr. Ewart Brown yesterday promised to reduce the growing backlog of people waiting to take driving tests on the Island.

He said the long list of people waiting to sit their tests had risen over the summer months due to a shortage of examiners at the Transport Control Department (TCD) brought on by summer vacations.

At a press conference yesterday, Dr. Brown said there were currently 155 people in a queue waiting to take a driving test, but said 350 people were processed in June and 370 people in July.

The Minister said he hoped to see the list diminish with the appointment of an additional examiner later this year, and the return of examiners from their holidays.

"Many months ago we thought we had the problem solved, but in recent months we have watched the problem re-surface and it has come back in the form of a three-month extra delay. That is not the way we want to run TCD," said Dr. Brown.

"Why is the problem like that? There are a number of reasons, the most telling of which is it's Government's policy, and the Minister of Finance has made it clear... that accrued vacation is to be taken before the end of the year.

"We have found a number of examiners wanting to take that vacation in the summer time."

Dr. Brown said TCD had also seen an increased number of requests for driving tests, which had added to the problem.

He said he had requested authority to hire an extra examiner, and was also looking to borrow test examiners from the Public Transport Board to reduce waiting times.

The Minister added: "With that, we hope to cut significantly into the backlog this month and it's my hope that by this time next month we will have it smoothed out to the point where the backlog will be reasonable."

Dr. Brown said he was still discussing the possibility of introducing legislation that would speed up the process for those people who already have a valid drivers licence from overseas, including non-Bermudians and Bermudians who have obtained their first licence abroad.

He said he hoped to take that proposal to Cabinet in October, and said as the majority of test requests were from people who already had a licence for another jurisdiction, it should have a huge impact on the waiting time.

He said the challenge was not reducing the backlog, it was in keeping the list permanently down.

Acting director of TCD, Randolph Brangman, said there were currently seven examiners at TCD, one of which deals with car driving tests only.

However, when the additional examiner arrives later this year, there will be two examiners dedicated to car driving tests, resulting in an extra 60 tests being processed a week.

He said there were two examiners on holiday at the moment, but other examiners had been working weekends in a bid to cut the backlog.