Driving test backlog ‘cannot get much worse’ as average waiting time reaches 22 weeks
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/driving-test-backlog-cannot-get-much-worse-as-average-waiting-time-reaches-22-we/
Posted by tylerthe-theatre
Driving test backlog ‘cannot get much worse’ as average waiting time reaches 22 weeks
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/driving-test-backlog-cannot-get-much-worse-as-average-waiting-time-reaches-22-we/
Posted by tylerthe-theatre
24 Comments
I don’t understand what’s happening to this country.
We’ll just have idiot kids driving without a license.
If people WANT to follow the law why are we stopping them?
Because 6 months is the furthest ahead you can actually book, if they extended that they’d see that the backlog is actually quite a bit longer
Yet people on reddit will still insist retesting everyone every 10 years is a good idea.
I literally can’t book a test because I’m trying to book an automatic to manual conversion and it can only be done over the phone. By the time I get through to someone on a phone, all the spots have already been taken by people using the website. I’ve been calling every Monday at 6am for 4 months, I then try to call at random times every other day when I have time to call, but nothing. I’ve given up, and instead I’m putting money aside so I can upgrade to an automatic car. The amount of time I’ve wasted practicing driving manual, and trying to book the test is just depressing.
A lot of it is artificial. Developers have worked out how to bot the system and take all the slots and then sell you can app to get access to the slots.
Perhaps it’s time to take up cycling instead? Particularly in big cities like Manchester.
The bot problem has been known about publicly for years, and the “consultation” for a “plan” to address this only closed last week.
The gears of the public sector do indeed turn slowly.
“This featured a plan aimed at stopping bots mass-booking new slots so they can be resold on the black market for inflated prices.”
And they wonder how the situation arose in the first place 🙄
This will continue to be a problem until DVSA only allow personal applicants to make applications for a driving test. As they allow bots, these are booking all the test slots and then selling them off at a profit. This is profiteering, pure and simple.
People are going to start timing out their theory tests, and we’ll be seeing a backlog there too, if this carries on
Stop letting bots book tests and introduce a deposit that is refunded if you arrive to the appointment.
22 weeks would be one thing but whenever I go on the website there’s simply nothing to book, not 6 months, not 2 years, just ‘sorry there’s no tests at this time, try again later’
Wtf. It’s so easy in the USA to get a driving test lol. UK seems a bit backwards sometimes.
Do you still get your driving test free in the army?
They need to go back to a non-digital method. Phoning your local test centre and then having a method for registered instructors booking and banning those who take the piss.
Trying to get a test in Essex if anyone wants to swap for Herne Bay.
Sold my motorbike at the start of the year with the intention of getting my driving licence and a car. Half a year later I’ve given up on booking a test and am now looking at new motorbikes. Turns out you can get a *lot* of nice bikes for the price of driving lessons and a 10-year-old Honda with 100k miles.
I’m fortunate in that I can use public transport when I go into the office, but given how useless public transport is for many commutes this feels like a very real barrier to growth and social mobility that should be straightforward to solve with a modest investment. We don’t do that here, though.
Currently in training to be a driving instructor. Whilst “resellers” of tests are a major issue (Im shocked they could do this in the first place), I can tell you the main reason why there’s a backlog – no one wants the job to conduct these tests. The pay is notoriously low for the experience you’d need. Any driving instructor going into that role would be taking a pay cut. Why would they do that?
Ok top of that, they need to employ more people. But they are not.
DVLA can stop reselling driving test slots. Sometimes the fix is simple.
As someone stuck in this situation, it is hell.
I’m 25, am fully competent to drive, but I have months and months of waiting for a test, that is after already waiting damn near a year for the lessons. Since Covid I was waiting a year or two for the backlog to die down, but it never did…
The whole learning to drive system really needs to be looked into.
Slightly off topic, but the motorcycle licensing system is also ridiculous.
I did my A2 licence, which means I can ride motorcycles up to 47 brake horsepower. Now that I’ve had that for two years, I can get it upgraded to the fully unrestricted A licence (if I was 24, I could have went straight into this).
To get it upgraded, I’m going to have to pay for lessons from a training school so I have access to a bigger bike, and then I’ll need to pass the exact same mod 1 and 2 tests that I have already passed.
For me, I’ll be doing my tests on a slightly bigger bike so there is a little difference (Kawasaki Z400 to Z650), but for some training schools, their A2 and A bikes are EXACTLY the same, just with the A2 bike having a restrictor on it.
It’s madness.
Ive been driving around test ready for 3 months and there is nothing in any test centre in a 2 hour drive from me for 3-6 months (there is basically nothing as far as I can see….). We even looked at my wife’s home town which is 3.5 hr drive away. You have to be seriously on it to bag a cancellation. I almost got one in Barnet but it was gone in 2 minutes.
That’s because it’s easy to write scripts to scalp all the tests and then sell them on, so driving instructors are hoarding them and selling them on WhatsApp, and then driving instructors who don’t do this are referring them to their mates, who do this, for kickbacks.
My wife finally passed last week, and that’s because I get up for shift work early on Mondays, and logged on every Monday to try and get one. I managed to get a test in November, booked back in June, but the driving instructor said it was the wrong test centre and wanted another one, nearer, and a closer date, and to try x service.
Luckily I just managed to get on a test swap Facebook group and swap with someone who’s son had broken his arm so couldn’t make his date.
We’ve been through this rigmarole 3 times now, but I’m glad it’s done!
I passed in 2001, and all I had to do was ring up, I didn’t use my local test centre (wellington) because the wait was 5 weeks, and booked at a centre that wasn’t really on peoples radars and got a test in 2 weeks (Sutton).
My wife logged on at 6am this morning to book hers, there were 16000 people ahead of her in the queue.