News

Miss. driving centers will use testing kiosks

December 18, 2003

JACKSON, Miss. -- Twenty driver testing centers across Mississippi by mid-January will have new touchscreen computers with which to test drivers on the rules of the road.

According to an article in the Las Vegas Sun, the department of motor vehicles will use 44 machines for regular driver and commercial-license testing.

The system will eliminate cheating because the 30 test questions on the screens will be randomly selected from a database of more than 800 questions, said Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol Chief Col. L.M. Claiborne Jr., in the article.

The system, produced and marketed by Birmingham-based Openshaw Media Groups Inc., can still produce a printed test for anyone who needs to take a paper-and-pencil exam.

A grant from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is providing 80 percent of the money to buy and install the computer kiosks, which will have a total setup cost of $611,000, according to the article.