A Driving School in France Hits a Wall of Regulations - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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The other driving schools have sued them, saying their innovations break the rules.
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partly because getting a driver’s license here is so difficult and expensive that it has inspired books on the subject,
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their struggle highlights how the myriad rules governing driving schools — and 36 other highly regulated professions — stifle competition and inflate prices in France.
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In the case of driving schools, the government offers only a limited number of exams each year, and these are doled out to the driving schools depending on their success rate the year before. That fact alone gives the old guard a virtual monopoly,
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calling for an overhaul of the written test, which he says goes far beyond making sure that a person knows the rules of the road.
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Some studies have concluded that the French are probably paying 20 percent more than they should for the services they get from regulated professions, which include notaries, lawyers, bailiffs, ambulance drivers, court clerks, driving instructors and more.
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The failure rate for the French driving exam is about 41 percent, the government office for road safety said. The cost to the economy goes beyond the embarrassment of those who fail, according to those who have studied it.
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barriers to getting a license are so high that about one million French people, who should have licenses, have never been able to get them.
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Mr. Kramarz said that it often costs 3,000 euros, or about $3,900, to get a license. But others said the average was closer to 1,500 to 2,000 euros.
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Although students are required to take only 20 hours of driving lessons, most end up doing double that while they wait for a chance to take the test.