More than 2,100 Islanders renew driver's licences in days before fees reinstated

Access PEIlocations across the provincehad a busy few days at the end of the yearbefore driver's licence fees were reinstated on Jan. 1.

There was a 350 to 400 per cent increase to the overall number of people visiting Access PEIlocations at the end of December, says Mark Arsenault, director of Access PEI.

"This won't be the last time we'll go through something like this. You know obviously this was a big deal. But last January we were busy as well," said Arsenault.

The fees were scrapped by the previous Liberal government to offset the one cent rise in gas tax that came into effect in April.

A five-year licence now costs $116.

2,100 licence renewals

When looking at driver's licence renewalsalone, there were 1,200on Dec. 30 and another956 on Dec.31.

For comparison, Arsenault said there were 3,056 licence renewals in the entire month of August, which works out to 139 each day.

Arsenault said he plans to reviewwhat went well and what staff can do better going forward.

"I think for us, we take it as a learning opportunity to try and get better at what we do," he said.

"We will take this and take a step back, take a look at our numbers and take a look at how we performed."

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