{"id":62799,"date":"2025-10-07T00:08:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T00:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/62799\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T00:08:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T00:08:11","slug":"hundreds-ordered-to-resit-driving-tests-after-auckland-vtnz-officers-allegedly-took-money-to-pass-applicants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/62799\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds ordered to resit driving tests after Auckland VTNZ officers allegedly took money to pass applicants"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\">There are now concerns that some drivers given pass marks may not have met the required threshold during their practical tests, and they will be retested. <\/p>\n<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\">An NZTA spokesman told the Herald the agency was requiring 322 people to resit driving tests after investigations found \u201cserious misconduct\u201d involving five Driver Testing Officers (DTOs) at VTNZ\u2019s Highbrook branch in Auckland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cNZTA has been informed by VTNZ that the DTOs had allegedly been accepting payments to pass people taking practical driver tests since 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThe five DTOs have been dismissed by VTNZ, and their Testing Officer (O) endorsements have been suspended while NZTA investigates these allegations. Potentially fraudulent activity has been referred to police for investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\">The spokesman said VTNZ had ceased offering practical driver licence testing at its Highbrook branch. The Highbrook site remained open for other services, including WoF and CoF inspections. <\/p>\n<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cNZTA is contacting the people who were tested by these DTOs and received a driver licence during the period where fraud was suspected and requiring them to pass an on-road driving test, at no cost to them, to confirm that they have the necessary skills to continue to hold a licence.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\">Police confirmed they  were investigating.<\/p>\n<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\">The Herald has sought comment from VTNZ. <\/p>\n<p class=\"OpntLyIinEMzNVPdR\" style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/the-daily-h-your-fast-smart-guide-to-the-days-biggest-headlines\/VQR5CULLQRECZP2ORSWPGDORBU\/?utm_source=nzherald&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_id=nz_cta\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/the-daily-h-your-fast-smart-guide-to-the-days-biggest-headlines\/VQR5CULLQRECZP2ORSWPGDORBU\/?utm_source=nzherald&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_id=nz_cta\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are now concerns that some drivers given pass marks may not have met the required threshold during&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,26676,7818,534,31951,51,1558,4189,305,24176,300,130,111,43,139,69,23421,19719,51252,45641,384,32145,51250,1527,764,131,165,61,6382,51251],"class_list":["post-62799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-allegations","tag-allegedly","tag-amid","tag-applicants","tag-auckland","tag-been","tag-driving","tag-have","tag-hundreds","tag-money","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-officers","tag-ordered","tag-pass","tag-passing","tag-people","tag-practical","tag-resit","tag-return","tag-tests","tag-than","tag-their","tag-to","tag-took","tag-vtnz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}