What's happening with driving lessons, driving tests and the DVSA?
What's happening with driving lessons, driving tests and the DVSA?
Dear heavenly father, it's been 86 days since my last driving lesson. I've had multiple driving tests cancelled and now all practical exams in June and July have been suspended. Our almighty governing body, the DVSA, has sent one solitary email since lock-down, keeping it's 40,000 driving instructor disciples in purgatory as to our futures.
Easing of lock-down
Will we be allowed back on July 4th when lock-down eases further like hairdressers? Doubtful. The problem could be close proximity for over 60 mins at a time. Hair cuts don't take that long and there's plenty of room in those establishments. I personally think it's highly unlikely seeing as all theory tests have been pushed back (four times now) to July 6th. If the DVSA aren't happy with students sitting in an office at a computer where social distancing can be maintained fairly easily, there's little chance they'd be happy with lessons resuming in a tightly packed car.
Critical lessons and tests
Not all driving lessons and tests have been cancelled however. You may have seen your local driving instructor zooming/crawling around over the past 12 weeks all through lock-down. This is because instructors were allowed to teach critical workers with driving tests already booked in. Who qualifies as a critical worker you might ask? Here's the list from the DVSA -
- health and social care
- education and childcare
- key public services
- local and national government
- food and other necessary goods
- public safety and national security
- transport
- utilities, communication and financial services
The DVSAs email to driving instructors
The email we received to help clarify what's going on didn't help. What we and our students need are dates, or possible ones, to help get us all ready for the day tests resume again.
This is what we got...
The plan to rebuild: the UK government’s COVID-19 recovery strategy
On 11 May 2020, the government published its COVID-19 recovery strategy which:
- sets out the progress the UK has made to date in tackling the coronavirus outbreak
- explains the plans for moving to the next phase of the response to the virus
Our priority remains to protect the public and save lives. That’s why any easing of measures must meet the government’s 5 tests. These are:
- Protect the NHS’s ability to cope.
- A sustained and consistent fall in the daily death rates from COVID-19.
- Reliable data showing that the rate of infection is decreasing to manageable levels across the board.
- Be confident that the range of operational challenges, including testing capacity and PPE, are in hand, with supply able to meet future demand.
- Be confident that any adjustments to the current measures will not risk a second peak of infections that overwhelms the NHS.
Driving instruction and driving tests
Other than emergency training and tests for critical workers, driving instruction and driving tests have not yet been able to restart because the risk of transmission of the virus in vehicles is higher.
In his statement on 10 June, the Prime Minister reiterated that the government will remain cautious and measure the effect of the changes it makes. The Prime Minister explained this means moving slower than we’d have liked in some areas.
Driving instruction and tests will only restart when the government is confident that the assessment of risk warrants it, subject to the 5 tests and further detailed scientific advice.
In the meantime, I want to re-emphasise that you should continue to limit driving lessons to critical workers who are preparing for an emergency driving test.
Once again, I would like to thank those of you who have been able to offer driving lessons to critical workers during these unprecedented times.
We will, of course, share more information with you as soon as it’s available – including the dates that driving instruction and driving tests can restart.
Planning to restart our services
Teams across DVSA have been working extremely hard over the past few months to make sure we’re in the best possible position to restart our services as soon as it’s safe to do so.
Our priority is to make sure that you, your pupils and our staff stay safe.
The work is split into these main areas:
- preparing guidance for driving examiners on carrying out driving tests
- making sure our driving test centres are ready to reopen
- making sure we have PPE in place
- understanding which driving examiners might not be able to return to testing straight away
- planning driving test schedules so that anyone who had a test cancelled because of coronavirus is considered a priority
- understanding how the situation might be different in England, Scotland and Wales
I want to explain what each of these involves in a little more detail.
Preparing guidance for driving examiners
We are reviewing and updating the guidance for driving examiners about carrying out driving tests. This includes things like the PPE they need to wear, greeting candidates and cleaning equipment such as sat navs and tablets.
We’re also working hard to make sure we’ll be able to quickly help the NHS Test and Trace service (Test and Protect in Scotland, and Test, Trace, Protect in Wales) should a driving test candidate or driving examiner develop symptoms in the days after a test.
Making sure driving test centres are ready to reopen
Some of our driving test centres have now been closed for 12 weeks. We need to make sure they’re thoroughly checked before we can reopen them.
As just one example, we need to make sure the hot and cold water systems are free from legionella bacteria (which causes Legionnaires’ disease).
Many of the contractors that we rely on to do this work also put their services on hold during the lockdown. We’re busy working with them to get our test centre network safe and ready.
Making sure we have PPE in place
To help keep you, your pupils and driving examiners stay safe, we’ve ordered PPE for all driving examiners. This includes face coverings and gloves.
Since the start of pandemic, there has been a high demand for this type of equipment. Like many organisations, we’ve had to wait for supplies to become available.
Understanding which driving examiners will be available
As you’ll appreciate, some of our driving examiners are either clinically vulnerable from coronavirus, or extremely vulnerable. Others might live with or care for people in those groups.
We’ve been working with all our driving examiners to find out more about their situation so we know how many will be able to return to carrying out driving tests as soon as we’re able.
Planning driving test schedules
When we suspended driving tests, we rescheduled all your pupils’ driving tests to a named date and time.
But we now have 3 issues to think about:
- rescheduled dates might not be suitable for you and your pupils, as situations may have changed
- not all driving examiners will be available
- social distancing measures might limit the number of tests we can carry out
This means we need to think about the best way to make sure your pupils can take their test at a convenient time, in a way that’s fair to everyone.
The fairest way we can do this is to put all the rescheduled tests ‘on hold’.
This means the test will no longer go ahead on the originally rescheduled date.
We will then ask people in the backlog to go online and choose their preferred date and time. We’ll invite them to do this in batches, based on when their test should have originally taken place.
We will contact you before we start this process, so you can make your pupils aware of what’s happening. We will also contact them directly with more information.
We are also planning how we can continue to help critical workers to get a test as a priority throughout this process.
Driving lesson rumors
The DVSA have sent out one email and tweeted twice on their main Twitter feed (see image higher up the page for the latest vague statement) to help keep a 40,000 strong industry informed over the past three months. Suffice to say there's a lot of angry, worried and confused instructors out there looking to get help from anywhere they can. Some are already teaching once again, going against government advice, potentially risking their career because they've no other choice. Red driving school and Young Driver are telling their students that they'll be resuming in the first week of July. What do they know that the rest of us don't? I think they're crossing their fingers and hedging their bets.
The rumor that rings truest, but isn't what you want to hear, is an August re-start date. This come from a chap speaking to a chief examiner who mentioned the unions wanting to keep their members safe. Anyone sitting in a car for 40+ minutes with someone infected with Covid 19 is catching it. No matter what PPE you have on. I think this virus has to become scarce before we see the resumption of DVSA approved lessons and driving tests.
