Learners are struggling to sit driving tests due to a chronic backlog of pupils due to the pandemic.
Here, a driving instructor and three learners share how they have been affected.
‘I’ve been contacting driving instructors for a year’
Chiedza Chogugudza has been searching for a driving instructor for well over a year. The 24-year-old molecular biology research analyst passed her theory test in April 2021 and found an instructor at the same time, but only completed four hours of practice before contracting Covid, leading the instructor to give her place to another learner. “Now I can’t even get an instructor to respond to me and I’ve contacted so many instructors and schools that I’ve lost count,” says Chogugudza, who lives in Richmond-upon-Thames, adding that she has found booking a test “basically impossible”.
When she sat her theory test last year, she never thought it might expire before she got her licence. The situation is made worse by having no family or friends nearby who could teach her to drive. “It’s disheartening,” she says, adding that the cost of lessons is increasing with fuel prices. “It’s only going to get more expensive. Average prices have gone from £28 per hour last summer to £35+.”
‘I spent £530 on test slots’
Like other leaners in London, when Nino Shankischvili, 34, tried to book a driving test at the beginning of this year, she couldn’t find any slots at local test centres. “It was a nightmare,” she says. Shankischvili holds a Georgian driving licence, and needed to sit the practical test in order to get a UK licence. Then a driving instructor she had a couple of lessons with told her he had a slot in a few days, and that it would cost £170. “I wasn’t sure what he meant at first, but then I found out that apparently instructors can bulk [book] test dates, and then resell them,” she says. “I really didn’t want to pay that much money but I needed a licence because we have a newborn baby.”
Shankischvili sat her first test in mid-March, but did not pass. When she contacted the instructor, he told her the price had increased to £180. “He was like, the prices went up because of what’s going on around the world,” she says. “When I went to check the website, it was still saying £62. I really needed my licence so I closed my eyes to those terrible prices.” Shankischvili passed on her third attempt in April, having paid out £530 in booking test slots.
‘My driving school has closed its waiting list’
Driving instructor Craig Preedy, 54, says the backlog has forced him to close the waiting list at his driving school as they can’t guarantee starting anyone new until 2023. In Hereford, where he teaches, the waiting time is up to mid-December, with short-notice tests getting “snapped up” by booking apps that have sprung up in response to the backlog.
“What we’re getting is people booking driving tests before they’ve even had a driving lesson. So they will pass their theory, [book a test] using an app … maybe in September and expect you to be able to get them ready for that point in time,” he says.
“I think the DVSA aren’t putting as big a clamp on those apps perhaps as what they claim, because there are still students that are getting tests really quickly.” Tougher action also needs to be taken against instructors who sell test slots at inflated prices, he argues.
Preedy predicts the backlog is going to have unintended consequences. “It’s a crisis of the future in terms of the need for paramedics, postmen, delivery drivers, lorry drivers, fire engine drivers, police officers – it’s all going to have a knock-on effect.”
‘The whole situation is incredibly stressful’
For 41-year-old Eleanor Harrison, not being able to drive has made school runs with her five-year-old son difficult. She says the walk home from school – 40 minutes normally but sometimes close to two hours with a small child – is “lovely in the summer” but a nightmare in the winter: “Doing the walk in the cold and dark with an asthmatic child is not great,” Harrison, who works part-time in an admin role in social care says, explaining that her husband and a “kind neighbour” have “cobbled something together” for the morning school run.
Harrison estimates she has spent “upwards of £3,000 on lessons”. She began learning to drive before the pandemic, but was not ready to sit her test before the first UK lockdown in 2020. She had a test booked in for February 2022, but contracted Covid; the earliest next slot she could book was in July. “The whole situation is incredibly stressful,” she says, explaining that she feels “so much pressure to pass before the winter”.
Harrison adds: “I’m also cross that if I don’t pass it will be months before I can get another date and my theory test could run out and I would have to take that again. I feel like the least the DVSA could do is extend the theory test period as a gesture of goodwill.”
‘I see my 14-month-old far less than I should’
Despite starting driving lessons in September 2020, Matt Kneale, a 30-year-old doctor in Manchester, still does not hold a licence after the DVSA cancelled his practical test three times. This has been particularly challenging since he became a father 14 months ago, he explains: “Not being able to drive means I can’t do the nursery drop-off or collection but also can’t easily drive home from late shifts [as there’s] no public transport. This means I regularly have to stay in on-call accommodation at the hospital and see my child far less than I should.”
Kneale is now at the point where he would consider paying a higher price for a test slot. “I am strongly considering it if I can book some annual leave,” he says. He underlines the impact the backlog is having on his family, saying he has spent “perhaps two-thirds of [his] time away from home over the last three months”. “It does put strain on relationships and mental health because you’re missing valuable time, and it puts pressure on your other half to cover the slack.”
• This article was amended on 18 July 2022 to remove a reference to the DVLA; it is the DVSA (Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency) that is responsible for driver testing.
