SINGAPORE: The year was 1978 and it was a day former private driving instructor Sunny Kang remembers vividly: One of his students stepped into his car for a lesson – wearing a wet swimsuit.
“She came to learn driving while wearing her swimsuit. The moment she stepped in, the whole car seat was wet,” said Mr Kang, 75, in Mandarin.
“I grumbled a bit and told her off, but she said that there was no time to change, so she just walked out to my car and began to drive,” said Mr Kang, still incredulous after over 40 years.
Mr Kang has had the same job for 48 years. It is such memories that he now holds dear as his career came to an end on Saturday (Apr 27), his 75th birthday and the age limit for private driving instructors.
Singapore had 305 private driving instructors as of March 2024, said the traffic police in response to queries from CNA. This is in stark contrast to the 1980s, when there were thousands of private driving instructors, Mr Kang estimated.
The dwindling number is largely because the police stopped issuing private driving instructor licences in 1987 when the first two driving schools were set up.
“The rationale for this was to align with the objective of having dedicated driving schools to provide structured training programmes for learner motorists with access to one-stop services and better training facilities,” said the police.
The three driving schools – Singapore Safety Driving Centre, Bukit Batok Driving Centre and ComfortDelGro Driving Centre – had a total of 723 instructors as of March this year.
In 2017, the age limit for driving instructors was raised from 70 to 75.
An average of 19 private driving instructor licences were invalidated annually from 2020 to last year, the traffic police said. The invalidations were mainly due to private instructors such as Mr Kang reaching 75 years old.
Other than Mr Kang, CNA also spoke to five private driving instructors. They say that in around 10 years, there will be no more private driving instructors in Singapore.
The instructors, who have from several weeks to 11 years left before their licence is invalidated, said that one aspect of the job they will miss is meeting and interacting with students from all walks of life.
They also hoped the government would consider either extending the age limit for driving instructors or giving out new licences, but knew this was unlikely.
