Georgia Opens State CDL Facility in Central Region
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Only a month after the Georgia Department of Driver Services opened its only commercial driver license testing site in the central part of the state, the center has already helped 19 drivers get on the road.
An opening ceremony at the 4,000-square-foot office at 105 Industrial Park Road in Forsyth, along Interstate 75 and U.S. Route 41, was attended by 70 state and local officials. There, DDS Commissioner Spencer Moore said March 26 that the new location, which opened its doors Feb. 27, already has served 608 customers, given 110 licenses to new drivers, and 19 people earned their CDLs, according to the Monroe County Board of Commissioners.
The Forsyth facility is the only DDS CDL testing site in Middle Georgia, an 11-county region surrounding Macon, and is one of 11 CDL testing sites run by the state.
DDS also regulates 20 commercial driver training schools and 96 third-party CDL testers. According to the DDS 2023 annual report, CDL third-party testing sites employ 186 examiners to administer the CDL skills tests on behalf of DDS. During the last fiscal year, third-party testers administered more than 10,800 CDL tests, and Georgia had 399,055 drivers holding a valid CDL.
The DDS relocated its driver services CDL testing site from its Jackson center to Forsyth due to the new location having more space to add commercial vehicle testing carousels that will result in the ability to offer more daily tests. This year, other CDL test locations are expected to open at new DDS facilities in Douglasville, a few miles west of downtown Atlanta, and Hazlehurst, in the southeast near U.S. Highway 34.
The project to build a new state driver services facility in Forsyth received broad local support by officials from the Monroe County Board of Commissioners, the Development Authority of Monroe County, Forsyth-Monroe County Chamber of Commerce and the City of Forsyth.
Georgia CDL testing site in Forsyth. (Monroe County Board of Commissioners via Facebook)
DDS officials have been focusing on improving services for CDL holders, such as creating a CDL advisory board. The state agency plans to increase CDL road test appointments at its facilities this year by a few hundred.
In December, DDS launched an enhancement to its commercial motor vehicle skills testing process with an updated and modernized skills testing procedure redesigned by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators and approved by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
At that time, Gov. Brian Kemp stated that the state’s “adoption of this modernized skills test for CDL applicants is both in line with that priority and reinforces our ongoing efforts to get more commercial drivers on the road.”
Without lowering requirements or compromising safety, the updated CDL skills test used “real-world scenarios that all focus on safety-critical items,” and includes updates in three areas: the basic control skills test, inspection and the road test.
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