Learner drivers have been suffering ‘frustrating’ waits of up to eight months for a driving test slot, with some forking out a mega 400 per cent more to online touts
Learners are forking out up to £500 for a driving test as they face ‘frustrating’ eight month waits in some regions.
A target for cut average driving test waiting times in Britain to seven weeks is not expected to be met for another two years, according to the public spending watchdog.
Some of the worst hit areas are the East Midlands and London, with one firm in another hard hit area, Scunthorpe, telling The Mirror their pupils have not even been able to book the £62 test at all.
While nearly one in three learners are paying third parties up to £500 to book a test because of the large backlog, a National Audit Office (NAO) report said.
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has failed to appoint sufficient new examiners to enable it to increase test slots despite several recruitment drives, the inquiry found.
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One Scunthorpe driving school, who did not wish to be named, told us: “Our students are not able to get tests at the minute, they are struggling to find one at all.
“This has been going on for months. We are not sure why. It’s extremely frustrating. It’s not very fair on them.”
The NAO said the DVSA has struggled to understand the real demand for tests because of the third parties quickly booking available slots using automated programmes, known as bots.
Chief Executive of the Driving Instructors Association, Carly Brookfield said she’s seen waits of up to eight months for tests which are being sold by ticket touts for 400 per cent more.
She said the last five years has ‘gone in reverse” and has been “frustrating for trainers, pupils and parents.”
“We’ve had delays of six months for pupils and I’ve also heard of people waiting up to eight months for a driving test,” she told The Mirror.
“It puts a huge amount of pressure on instructors and their pupils and this is a situation that has been occurring and getting worse since lockdown.
“The real problem is examiner recruitment and retention. They had a target of recruiting 450 examiners, the national audit report points to them only having recruited 83 to date.
“On top of this bots have been scraping up the slots and selling them on for inflated prices. They should have a better system.
“Next Spring, five years on from when this problem first started, they are going to shut out the booking slots apart from the pupil. But they’ve also shut out driving instructors too.”
“Those waits cause a myriad of problems, not just the length of time to get a licence, for driving to work, or going to college. It’s the knock on effect on people who are worried and booking slots they are not ready for, while others have to keep themselves in peak driving fitness for months.
“It adds to the pressure on driving instructors and their pupils. Pay examiners more and the problem is solved overnight.”
Learners faced an average waiting time for a test in Britain of 22 weeks in September, compared with about five weeks in February 2020 before the virus crisis.
A total of 1.1 million tests could not be carried out in the 2020/21 financial year because of coronavirus restrictions, and an estimated 360,000 of these have still not been booked.
The DVSA does not expect to meet its target of reducing the average waiting time to seven weeks until November 2027, the report said.
Its initial timeline for achieving this was by the end of this year.
Exit rates among examiners are high because of “perceived uncompetitive pay and safety concerns”, the NAO found.
The NAO recommended that the DVSA and the Department for Transport (DfT) assess whether there are enough measures in place to ensure learners are able to book a test when they need to.
It also called on them to investigate how to boost the examiner workforce.
Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said: “The current system for providing driving tests in England, Scotland and Wales is not working satisfactorily, with long waiting times and exploitation of learner drivers by resellers of test slots.
“Our report recommends that the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency and the Department for Transport take decisive action to restore a fit-for-purpose driving test service.” Last month, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander announced that military driving examiners will be mobilised to test civilians.
