It’s an all too familiar story – you’ve passed your theory test, you’ve taken your driving lessons, put in lots of private practice with friends or family and you’re ready to take your driving test….but you can’t find a practical driving test date.
It’s definitely a hot topic and here, we look at why the waiting times are so long and what the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) are doing to try to improve them.
Firstly, the good news is that the DVSA are doing LOTS to try to get the waiting times down. But why are they so long at the moment anyway? It seems to be a combination of things, rather than one particular issue.
Covid-19 and national lockdown:
Who can forget March 2020, when the country went into ‘lockdown’ and we all found ourselves unable to do the things we have normally taken for granted? The impact on driving test availability of the numerous lockdowns over the coming months was massive. Hundreds of thousands of learner drivers were unable to take their driving test and the backlog grew and grew. Add to that every 16 year old about to turn 17 and wanting to learn to drive and it created a huge issue for the DVSA, which it is still trying to deal with to this day.
Industrial action:
There has also been industrial action over the 12 months – examiners going on strike. Since the industrial action started in December 2022, there have been 48 days of action that directly affected driving tests. It is understood around 25000 driving tests were cancelled due to the industrial action.
A change in habits:
Historically, you would expect your driving instructor to recommend booking your practical driving test when you were near to test standard. Due to the current delay and backlog, many pupils are now booking their practical test as soon as they’ve passed their theory test – and this is often before actual driving lessons have even commenced. This means that many learner drivers have test dates reserved that are unlikely to be suitable for them.
What is being done?
On 6th July 2023, Loveday Ryder (who is the Chief Executive of the DVSA) wrote a blog giving further insight into the driving test delays and also outlined extensively what the DVSA are doing to try to resolve the issue. You can read the blog in full here: https://despatch.blog.gov.uk/2023/07/06/what-is-causing-the-long-driving-test-waiting-times/
How can Fast Pass Driving Courses help?
As driving instructors, we are not allowed to ‘sell’ driving tests to pupils. Here at Fast Pass Driving Courses, we do not ‘hold’ driving tests as some companies do. We work tirelessly to find cancellation dates for our pupils. This often means spending hours looking at the DVSA system to try to find these dates. As such, we do charge an ‘administration fee’ for finding these tests. You can find out more here: https://fastpassdrivingcourses.co.uk/fasttrack/
