How the hell do you manage to book a driving test?

[Chesticles]

The whole driving test booking system is a complete farce.

DS passed his theory test 2 weeks ago, on a Tuesday. We tried that afternoon to book a practical test but there were none available. At any test centre for any date. He spoke to his driving instructor at his next lesson and was told he needed to try at 6am on Monday. We were on holiday but tried at 8am on Monday, were 10,000th in the queue. But all tests gone by the time we got to the front of the queue. This is for any test centre, for any date.

this morning we were up at 5.45. Went to the website, 500 in queue. Got to front of queue and it said it was closed until 6am. Fine. 6am went back to the website, and it seemed to have remembered me. So entered his details etc. and the page crashed . Some sort of http 403 server error. Tried again, entered all the details, crashed again. Woke dh up to use his phone. He joins queue at 6.10 and is 25,000th in the queue. I eventually manage to get past the crashing page. There are 2 rest centres with available tests (it didn’t specify which dates) which are both of the Isle of Skye! Think fuck it, I’ll just book one. Click on the test centre, and the page says I’ve been inactive for 30 minutes and boots me out! It was 6.12! My alarm only went off at 5.45. I hadn’t even been awake 30 minutes. So by 6.15 all tests seem to have gone.

how the fuck are we supposed to get a test?!? The whole system is broken.

sorry, that turned into a bit of a long rant! Just so frustrated

DH learned to drive in 2020, between lockdowns. He still hasn't managed to get a test. We don't have time or energy as a busy working family with young kids to be faffing around getting up at 5:30 for a flaming driving test site that never works anyway. We don't trust those dodgy third party scalpers. So he's completely stuffed and I'm still ferrying everyone around.

DD has just booked her driving test, six months in advance, by being on the website at 6am on a Monday. Sounds like you need to do that again and hope the webpage doesn't crash. She was put in a massive queue but it she did eventually get to the front and was able to book.

It seems easier to get flipping Glastonbury tickets than book a flipping driving test! So frustrated.

book at 6.00 am on a monday
try 6 months time in any area
then arrange a cancellation
i did this for dc, on the advice given here

Get the Testi app - pushes alerts but you hv to be fast

It’s almost impossible. We live in Nottingham and there are no tests. None. At any test centre at any time. Not at 6am on a Monday, not through a cancellation app. My dd did her test in Newcastle.

My advice is to pick somewhere remote and book a test there. Being in the system, speeds things up. Then look for a cancellation as far afield as you can manage,

Dd did the 6am Monday morning thing got a test for 6 months later an hours drive away. She booked that then kept checking for cancellations. On day 3 of checking she got a cancellation for in two weeks time at her local test centre. That was last month (and thankfully she passed!)
just keep persevering accept anything and keep refreshing for cancellations.
But also why are you doing it????

And you can’t log on until 6am exactly. As you have discovered the site is closed before that, presumably while they are uploading the tests. You can’t wait outside of that.

I booked DS's 18 months ago and was able to get one locally at 6am monday on the dot. They were all gone within minutes.

But I get the impression from friends, that since then, the bots have ramped up their activity and are just swamping the site buying all the slots.

I don't understand why the government refuse to do anything about it. May as well move over to learners popping into their local council offices with their provisional and theory test pass certificate and booking it face to face. They could be driven there in a lesson. It would start to get some control over it again.

And…(again) you are more likely to pick up a cancellation for wherever you want it for within three days. So if you have got a car he can do his test in, that’s a possibility have he can drive well enough to pass. The problem there is if you don’t have a suitable car, this is no good as you can’t use the instructors car if they are booked on a lesso, which they very likely will be.

Some of the apps don’t show or book the last minute tests automatically because you can’t cancel them so if you are using an app you need to think about that.

I found the apps would show a cancellation but not book a cancellation as the DVLA are trying to stop the apps so that didn’t work for me.

Everyone keeps telling me ( in real life when I rant about it) they just log on at 6 am, book a test for 6 months away, and then once have the ref code hunt for cancellations. But I can’t even get a test booked. Perhaps it was because I logged in before 6am? But it was letting me into the site after 6am and I was filling the details out, just kept getting a server error. Which when i Google seems to be when the site is being overrun by bots. Oh well. Try again next week.

PS. For those who asked why I was doing it both DS and I were up, and then DH too by 6.10. We are just trying to help/support him

My OH is a driving instructor and finds it very frustrating because some driving instructors snap up slots and then sell them at a profit

We had to book a test for somewhere 300 miles away, by logging on just after 6am and then got the testi app and got alerts for cancellations ..testi get lots (presumably the bots booked ones) . and got one locally that way.
Unfortunately DD failed the first test, but did the same again for the upcoming one.
It is an absolute joke :(

Chest, I was on the site around 5:55am. I don't think I clicked search / enter (whatever it was) until the 6am pips went on the radio.

I couldn't trust DS to do his either, the stakes were too high. I do admin so can navigate that sort of thing very quickly and very accurately.

Because thry don't want people, especially young people, driving.

By making it as difficult and inconvenient as possible, they hope to get more people dependent on public transport.

We managed to book one two weeks ago, DS and I both joined the queue at 5.45 with his details ready on a note on our ipads to copy and paste in, he went for local centres, I went for one further away in a town we know well and can get to for practice, we ended up going with mine and got it booked no problem (for December). Got a cancellation app and within two days was changed to this week.

The bots are taking absolutely everything within a handful of seconds. My DD passed last month and we got the test using a app/bot in the end. We had tried for months with no luck. Many 6am tries, tried with Testi etc. No luck with anything. Testi worked up until recently - my DS had success with it 2 yrs ago.

This is an absolute scandal that gets worse by the day as more people come into the system. The government have zero shits to give. Any action they have taken is performative at best and has had absolutely zero impact. My kids took tests in 2023 and 2025 (thankfully that's my youngest passed now). My DD's driving instructor had loads of people ready to take tests and nobody could get anything so lesson frequency had to be cut down. Really disgraceful. It's also bullshit to attribute it to covid. There has been plenty of time to sort this out and we are failing our young (and some older) people.

I saw a TV report on this a year ago when I was away on holiday down south. There needs to be a ban on agents buying tests. It's like ticket touting.

Nothing in this country bloody works. How crazy is it that young people are booking tests in towns they don't know miles from home.

Complain to your MP!

I am astounded after reading all these comments! How has it become so complex and tedious ……… when I was learning to drive (please don’t ask how long ago that was) …….. the driving instructor told me I was ready for the test, he booked the test date and a two hour slot in his own diary……..simple! I seem to recall that my test date was only about three weeks later.

It's beyond tedious - it becomes like a job/objective that you have to be alert to/bash at all times. I had the same experience as you - me and my driving instructor just filled in a form and it was done.

Up early on a Monday morning but make sure you have the details (prov number I think it was) already copied so you can just paste!

Dd failed her first test last week, one silly mistake, now she’s got a test booked in 6 months miles and miles away and is hoping to exchange it for a cancellation locally, it’s an absolute joke, poor kids seem to have so many barriers these days. We don’t live in the centre of a city, so public transport is crap, and really quite expensive (stagecoach have interpreted fare caps as minimum pricing so flat rate £6 return on all bus journeys).

No good advice I’m afraid. I passed in December but it took me two years of trying to book a practical test before I successfully got one. When I eventually booked one, it was 6 months away and not my nearest test centre.
Luckily I passed first time, but I would have passed if my test was sooner anyway.
Cancellations are like gold dust because people know they have at least a 6 month wait to get another test, so even if they’re ill etc they’re not rescheduling.

It seems ludicrous
ds isn’t far off driving age and I’m dreading it already. I know there’s a shortage of examiners.

I might be being dense here as I haven’t tried to book one yet so don’t know the process but a simple solution seems to be to make them un swappable

the driver who booked attends or cancels.
Cancellations go back in the main allocation and you try for them again.

there should be no need to change a test attendee.

I logged on at 5.50am on 7th July, got a test for early December. Even though there were 10,000 people in front of me. Just keep trying.