Waiting list up to over 600,000!

There are now 100,000 more students waiting for a test compared to last year

Learner drivers are really being hammered with waiting lists up to 600,000+ according to new figures recently released.  Numbers released by the DVSA show a eye watering 603,352 practical driving tests were booked at the end of April this year, a significant increase from 521,190 back in 2024.

The rise is due to the number of tests conducted in the first quarter of this year actually decreasing! Between January and April, 610,000 tests went out, a massive 15% drop compared to 718,000 exams for the same period in 2024.



Pass Rates up

The only good news coming out of the DVSA camp is that pass rates are actually going up.  Which could be due to students waiting until they're ready, or it's due to people having to wait extra months for tests and taking more lessons than they would have done, improving them as drivers on the whole.

April's pass rate reached 50.2%, an improvement from 48.3% in 2024 and the highest monthly figure since August 2021, which was 50.3%.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has recently commented that the Labour Government “inherited an enormous backlog” but is “acting fast” to tackle the issue, with at least 10,000 extra tests to be available each month.

She told the Commons’ Transport Select Committee her department is aiming to reduce the average waiting time for driving tests in Britain to seven weeks by summer 2026.

It doesn't seem as though the magic 7 point plan is working so far.

The wait has never been so bad

Emma Bush, who is the managing director of the AA Driving School, said: “Learner drivers have waited long enough for an improvement to the lengthy waiting times to secure a practical test slot, it should not be this hard to book your driving test.

“There have simply never been enough test slots in the system to make up for those which were lost during coronavirus lockdowns and, as such, the backlog has persisted.

“New measures recently announced to tackle this are welcome and we eagerly await positive movement in the waiting times to ease the pressure on pupils.

“Unblocking the backlog is vital to ensure people are not held back from work or education opportunities through the lack of a driving licence.”

A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “The current backlog facing learner drivers is completely unacceptable, but we are taking decisive action to address the situation inherited from the previous government.

“Thanks to the intervention of the Secretary of State, an additional 10,000 driving tests will be made available monthly.



“This will ensure ready learners can book their tests more quickly, helping unlock opportunity and support economic growth.”

Consultation on who can book a test

Things are so bad and the DVSA so clueless, they're now opening up the floor for anyone to have their say on who should be able to book a test.  Have your say here.



It's a shame it's got to this stage where driving instructors might not be able to help learners book and manage their tests, but the system has been abused so much that perhaps, for the moment, the only people who should be able to book a test are those who need one.  Bots, brokers, scammers and larger schools who are mass blocking tests and skirting around the rules are ruing it for the rest of us.  Perhaps a 6 to 12 month break of the current system could give it the hard reset it needs and give the government the time it needs to implement the rest of their plan to get things back in order by their own 2026  deadline.