About half of the drivers who take their road tests in busy Brampton fail. In sleepy 

Kenora, the failure rate is lower than 20 per cent. As Ontario’s driving instructors 

have long known, some examination centres fail a far higher percentage of

test-takers than others. Now the company that runs driver testing for the province 

has instituted pass-fail “norms” for each DriveTest centre based on their widely 

varying past results.

More than 50 examiners have faced “some level of remedial action” since the 

norms were introduced in January, Dalglish said. Remedial action includes 

both non-disciplinary measures, such as “clarification of expectations” and 

retraining, and disciplinary measures such as warnings and suspensions.