Robert paid £726 to skip the driving test waiting list. New laws mean others won’t be able to
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx219pn5g70o
Posted by ReanimatedCyborgMk-I
Robert paid £726 to skip the driving test waiting list. New laws mean others won’t be able to
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx219pn5g70o
Posted by ReanimatedCyborgMk-I
21 Comments
Won’t **have** to.
That phrasing makes it seem like the scalpers are doing them a favour.
They are not. They are scalping scum.
This is a good thing tho? So they cant be snapped up by bots and resold at inflated prices? I mean he shouldnt have had to spend 700 quid obvs but now this won’t happen to anyone else – feel like “won’t be able to” should be “will no longer have to”.
The driving test issue is a real microcosm of issues with the whole UK state.
These issues started with COVID and the backlog caused by lockdowns.
The government and DVLA just watched and talked about ballooning wait times for 6 YEARS. While they were well reported and actually have had a massive impacted on particularly young people’s life and the economy.
They have then watched a black market sprung up and operated very openly in response to the failures of the state.
I remember people talking about how easy it would be to build some simple code that would have prevented re selling 5 years ago lol.
Instead of taking any actual action they tinkered with the edges, released statements, press release about totally benign fixes that did nothing.
If they had done these changes in 2021 so much unnecessary issues would have been avoid. And I know it was a previous government but what the hell the civil service side doing ?
When i was doing.my tests cambridge had one of the worst backlogs and had a test booked for 2 months time. Could have gone Peterborough and booked a test for the next day. Scalpers, covid and ahit pay for testers made this problem
DVLA still selling your details too to parking companies et al.
With the pressure on driving tests, I do wonder if * driving standards in the UK are linked to people driving indefinitely on non UK driving licence.
My understanding is that you can only drive on a non uk licence for 6? Months.
Edit: * some of the driving standard issues
[deleted]
Fuck Robert. There wasn’t that much financial pressure if he forked out extra. Just feels like a dumb bitch now
You can always rely on the UK press to take institutional failings and blame them on one random group of people (or sometimes one specific person) who are just trying to survive within the system.
Bonus points if the random person is a visible minority so you can get a nice ragebait header photo to match.
There are four people quoted in the article, one of which is the literal minister responsible. Yet the BBC runs with a scapegoating headline and photo of the one black man. Who has no responsibility for any of this.
I wonder how Robert feels about speaking to the BBC about how structural failings cost him hundreds of pounds, only for the BBC to write a headline that paints him as a villain and an article that doesn’t do a whole lot to dissuade that notion?
Why not fix it this way?
To book a test slot, you need to enter your personal details, including your provisional licence number? Any you can only book one slot at a time?
Anyone who shows up on the day without the right details matching is refused the test.
Sounds simple to me or am I missing something here?
[deleted]
It blows my mind that this was ever a problem. It’s been known for years that these bots booking up all the slots was an issue, and nothing was done.
If I was being skeptical I might conclude that the loophole allowing this scalping to take place was originally spotted by insiders and it was in their interest to not fix it. That’s just my speculation about scenarios, not a statement of what actually happened.
It should have been a very quick change to prevent booking unless you are the licence holder taking the test, yet it’s continued for years.
That headline is really misleading and needs rewording. It is entirely misrepresentative of the situation
He was forced to pay that because scalpers used bots to snap up all the spots to resell. It was the only way he could get a test in a reasonable window. It wasn’t like he had a free choice to jump a logical queue.
New learners will not have to because:
> New government rules now mean only a learner driver can book their own test, part of a crackdown on third party operators using bots to hoover up thousands of slots. But it was too late for Robert
I always thought it was just a backlog from COVID. How did they let people book test to resell is mental.
What’s more mental is that it has taken this long to start to resolve.
In Norway we log on with digital ID to book driving tests. Unfortunately this is apparently too authoritarian
My son got his provisional license back in 2021 and failed 2 tests early on. Due to the shambles of trying to book a practical test since, his theory test has expired. So he has to retake his theory test before he can even book another practical test again. He has just given up on the idea now.
Hope whoever pays for skiping hte wait list fails their test
The going rate was £200ish to skip the list, this guy got double scammed. It was so rampant you could actually shop around
The article is a bit unclear on how this is actually going to work.
> The new rules introduced this week mean it is now against the law for anyone apart from the learner driver to book their driving test with the DVSA and the government hopes this will stop third parties accessing the booking system using learner drivers details.
However, clicking about:
> swapping your slot with another learner driver counts as a change.
So are they still allowing people to change the details on the booking or not? Because ultimately surely that is the kicker – I don’t see why that should ever be allowed or required at all.
When I did my driving test, I booked the test and I went to the test and I did the test. If I was ill I would have either cancelled it if allowed or taken the hit if not, it was about fifty quid, these things happen.
The idea of “swapping” the test sounds like an abuse vector that is completely unnecessary. Just remove the ability to change the name on the test, use a bit of common sense if someone typo’s their name, and you have fixed the entire issue.
What a weird angle this article has taken with the headline
Should be like “man wastes loads of money due to unfair system”
I’m so happy they’re finally taking good, significant measures to make getting a test not look like waking up at 5:30am on a Monday to book a slot 6 months away, then spending all day every day refreshing the page, redoing captchas, hoping that you’ll get lucky and snag a cancellation before a bot.
I absolutely refused to give the scalpers or those bot-powered apps any of my money, and as a result had to wait months between each test attempt – which only made my nerves worse, since I knew failing likely meant waiting another 6 months. From passing my theory to passing my practical (third attempt) was nearly a year and a half.