State of Illinois officials preparing to order thousands of suspect drivers in for new licensing tests were dismayed by what happened Monday as former students from one corrupt driving school rolled through stop signs, over curbs and into oncoming traffic.
By the time the first day of road testing for the suspect passenger car drivers had ended, only 24 of the 60 who took the test had passed, a failure rate of 60 percent, state officials said.The normal failure rate for first-time drivers is 20 percent, the state said.
“It’s very discouraging from a public safety perspective,” said David Druker, spokesman for Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White.
Mike Bauer, manager of the Chicago West facility where the testing occurred, said those who failed “just couldn’t drive.”
Bauer, who took over the facility after a raid by federal authorities on Nov. 18, 1999, cited numerous driver errors as he flipped through road-testing forms filled out by his examiners Monday.
He said several drivers failed because they blew through stop signs, including one who missed three during the test, which covers just 1.5 miles and lasts about 15 minutes. One driver stopped at a green light, then drove through the intersection when the light turned red.
Another driver backed onto a curb, Bauer said. One nearly hit a truck while pulling out of an alley. Several drivers couldn’t follow the basic directions given by examiners. Another almost had two accidents during the test, according to Bauer.
At least two more people went the wrong way down one-way streets, and at least two others made dangerous turns into oncoming traffic, Bauer addedThe new tests were ordered after a federal investigation found bribes were being paid by driving school operators to license examiners to pass thousands of drivers on their road tests.
The road tests Monday were part of the retesting that marked the first time the secretary of state’s office had targeted passenger-car drivers. Previously, retesting had been limited to truck and bus drivers, who the investigation revealed had also obtained their licenses through bribes.
Last week, the secretary of state’s office called in 158 drivers for retesting at the Chicago West facility, 5301 W. Lexington St. But the numbers were pared to 71 after seven failed the written test and 80 others didn’t show up.
Only 60 took the road test Monday. The remainder didn’t show, didn’t have insurance or had cars that weren’t deemed to be roadworthy by testers. Drivers who skipped or failed the tests will have their licenses revoked, Druker said.Federal prosecutors say corruption at the Chicago West facility flourished from at least June 1996 through November 1999. That period covers a portion of White’s regime as well as that of his predecessor, current Illinois Gov. George Ryan.
It is the only passenger-car licensing facility so far that has been targeted by federal prosecutors as part of Operation Safe Road, the investigation of license bribery in Illinois.
Those who were called in for the first wave of retesting were students of the now-defunct New Dehli Driving School. The school’s owner, Bharat Patel, was convicted last month on two counts of bribing at least seven road-test examiners.
About 300 other former Patel students are scheduled for retesting during the coming weeks.
The results were staggering to Jim Burns, who is White’s inspector general. Burns, a former U.S. attorney in Chicago, is working with federal prosecutors to identify suspect drivers licensed at the facility who will need to be retested.
“You’re talking a huge number,” Burns said. “It’s going to be a huge commitment for us. You’re talking thousands of names.”
Only the New Dehli students have been identified so far. Officials from four other passenger-car driving schools also have been charged in Operation Safe Road, and drivers from each of those schools also will have to be identified and tested, Burns said.
In addition, testimony at Patel’s trial last month indicated that drivers benefited from bribes paid by up to eight schools whose owners haven’t been charged. Burns said Monday’s results showed him that those drivers also are likely candidates for new tests.
“With the results we had today, you have to figure there’s going to be a very high percentage” of suspect drivers called in, he said, adding, “we just can’t take a chance of leaving somebody out there who is not a safe driver.”
Burns called the entire effort “a tremendous resource drain.”
Burns said his concerns about the extent of the problem stem from evidence presented at Patel’s trial.
Convicted former examiner Dina Bartucci-Miller testified that she accepted as many as 5,000 to 10,000 bribes at Chicago West. Prosecutors have said that another convicted former examiner, John Conti, was involved with a similar number of drivers.
The bribes pocketed by examiners at Chicago West typically were $10 or $20 for each fixed road test, according to court records. In all, eight facility employees were charged and have pleaded guilty, though most were not as deeply involved as Bartucci-Miller and Conti.
While the amounts were small, they added up for some of the more prolific examiners. For example, Conti admitted in his plea agreement that he pocketed at least $90,000 in bribes.
