Government to crack down on bots booking driving tests
Only learner drivers will be able to book driving tests and military examiners will be brought in under government plans to tackle the backlog...
Bots and third parties will be banned from booking driving test slots under plans announced by the Department for Transport (DfT), with the aim of reducing long waiting lists and preventing slots from being resold at high prices.
Under the current system, instructors are able to book tests on behalf of their students. However, under the new rules, tests will only be bookable by learner drivers themselves, and they will only be able to make up to two changes (for example, rescheduling or location changes) before the exam must be cancelled and rebooked. They’ll also be restricted to a limited number of test centres.
The new rules will also bring in examiners from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to conduct tests in an attempt to tackle the backlog. The DfT has recruited 36 MoD examiners to conduct tests in England one day a week for 12 months.
According to the DfT, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has onboarded 316 new examiners, but has actually achieved a net gain of just 40 as other examiners have left the profession.
In an attempt to keep them in the role, driving examiners will be offered a “retention payment” of £5000.
Despite the new changes, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander stated that the original goal of bringing waiting times down to seven weeks by summer 2026 will not be achievable. At the end of June, the average time a learner waited to take their driving exam was 21.8 weeks.
“I can't sit here today and tell you that I'm going to meet the summer 2026 deadline either,” said Ms Alexander. “Demand is still very high, and the approaches that DVSA have taken so far have not been sufficient to meet this level of demand.”
The news of the changes was welcomed by Steve Gooding, Director of the RAC Foundation. “It is good to see steps being put in place to put a stop to those touting tests to frustrated learners – candidates stuck in the queue should at least be reassured that they aren’t being elbowed aside by those simply seeking to make a quick buck.
“What will really deter the touts and tackle the queues would be a return to the more reasonable pre-COVID waiting time for tests, which we hope the arrival of a platoon of military examiners alongside the new DVSA recruits will help deliver.”
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