To ask how the f*ck you are meant to learn to drive these days?

[trapperjohna]

My 19 year old’s test has been cancelled 3 times by the test centre, and that’s post Covid restrictions! It went from December to March to June to August! She’s given up now, has thrown in the towel and is getting rid of her car. She wants to go travelling but was postponing it to get her driving license first (she doesn’t need one for the travelling but she wanted to get it out of the way). She’s sick of waiting. Lessons were a shitshow as well, she got a pisstaker who had her doing left and right turns 8 lessons in even though by this point she was proficient in doing dual carriageways and major roundabouts with her stepdad. She originally got him through a company and he was great but then he went self-employed, upped his prices and seemed to be deliberately not progressing her and started hounding her to book lessons with him. But nobody else had availability.

DD knows of a lad that’s booked a test in some obscure town on the south coast where his grandparents live to get it done ASAP as they had more availability and he’s going to spend the week down there with his grandparents to learn the area and prepare. We are in fucking Liverpool!

DSS is 17 and apparently kids at his college are trying to sell their tests to each other at inflated prices! What is going on?

Not to sound like a nutter, but at this point in starting to wonder if it’s a government conspiracy to combat air pollution!

Well I'm pretty sure it's not a government conspiracy because I'm on the other side of the world and my 18yo is having exactly the same problem.

Covid.

I was being tongue in cheek

I agree, DH booked (and paid I might add) a intensive course last April, they had him booked in for Oct when I was 35 weeks pregnant so he'd have it completed and test done by the time baby was here.

Come Oct the guy was getting harder and harder to get in touch with. Then eventually a week before he was due to start the guy said he had forgotten and was going on holiday. It was too late to book anyone else so our child is 6 months old and trying to find the time to do lessons right now is impossible. I'm still fucking raging about it.

@Mamai90.

That’s ridiculous! I’ve heard of them intense courses taking your money to reserve the place and get you booked in, only for them to tell you that you’ve been put on the waiting list once you’ve paid.

DD is lucky in that she lives in a city so can cope without a car. But I feel really sorry for people in rural areas who need to drive to get work/have a life and are struggling. Especially young people.

I feel her pain. My 18 year dd should have passed a year ago and here we are still lumping out cash waiting for her first test and me playing taxi still. She's up and I'm fed up it needs fixing

Well, the answer to your title is clearly: “be less your daughter, be me more the lad she knows”?

It’s really fucking annoying, yes. But there he is making a trip of it and getting on with it - whereas as she’s been pathetic and given up. Well done him!

I bet he wouldn’t have accepted making turns on week 8, either.

If this becomes a lesson for her in proactively going for what she wants, then it will pay more dividends back over her life than if she’d never gone through this.

Whichever works: kick her arse for being pathetic, or gently making a fun trip of doing it somewhere else. But do try to encourage her out of giving up.

If you're in Liverpool have you tried booking a Scottish or N Ireland test centre? Might be better availability than England and easy enough to travel for a few days.

Her daughter is frustrated with the situation like most ppl would be at this point!!

The 'lad' could stay with his GPs for the week.

OP, God I don't envy her I would hate to do my test again! Are there any other close by centres she can apply for? A cancelation list?

It's really bad, and I think with it being an issue that predominantly affects young people it isn't receiving the attention it deserves. My nephew has given up after having inconsistent lessons over the last year or so (due to lockdowns, then lack of availability) He's going to get a moped instead which worries his mum but it's the only way he can keep his apprenticeship (he has to be on site for 8am and there's no public transport options that will get him there on time)
One of his friends failed his test recently, he had to wait months to get it and his retest date won't be until September.

It is holding a lot of young people back in employment.

Hahahahahaha....
I've been waiting since March 2020 for my test here in Scotland. No tests available at all, instructor has said possibly September if I'm lucky. I too have given up, after having to sit my theory again its become a chore and I'm not enjoying it anymore.

Don't let her give up, that's just silly. She needs to get her license.

They've just closed our driving test centre as 'there's other nearby centres that can provide the same services ' - only they can't because demand is now much higher (due to the loss of a test centre) plus the other test centres are 15 - 20 miles away so youngsters now need to book a
2 hr lesson instead of the usual 1 hr that most booked.

Does she have a job @trapperjohna ? If she does, could she get a note from her employer saying that she needs to be able to drive for her work?

Oh and public transport is crap around here. There are towns with no connecting bus services to other nearby towns. A relative works with unemployed trying to get them into employment. One of the biggest barriers to getting a job is not being able to get there!

Also, is she able to attend a test date at any time? Could she be put on a cancellation list for a test?

My advice is to choose your driving instructor a little wiser. My son had his 1st test when covid was at its height. It was cancelled and he had to wait for the first available slot when rules allowed. Anyhow he failed (Big mistake) and he was gutted. Remember this was just when covid was slackening the rules and test were like rocking horse manure.. He had another test within 14 days. He failed again (Long story). He got his next test within another 2 weeks and thankfully passed.

It turned out that the driving instructor was part of a 'group' and they pooled the tests. Not sure how it works but i think they could just change the name on the booking, They had multiple bookings floating and it helped my son considerably.

Download the Testi app, it'll notify you as soon as there's cancellations.

It’s easy enough to say don’t give up but some people simply cannot afford to keep having lessons. Yes you could argue that if you can’t afford £120 for 2 lessons a month then you can’t afford the upkeep of a car/fuel/insurance once you pass but actually having the license gives you better work opportunities.

This whole debacle has wiped out half of DD’s savings. She’s not willing to spend any more on lessons, or the upkeeping of her old banger car because she can only use it to practice for a test that’s months away, and she’s already at a very proficient level having been driving for 2 years so it’s pointless to have it around purely for practice.

But she doesn’t need to pay £120 a month for 2 lessons until a test is available. What am I missing? Why not just continue the practice with her stepdad?
It makes sense for her to give up on running a car.
It doesn’t make sense to give up on doing a test.

We're in Scotland and my son is having the same issue. He's just had to do his theory again as well, as it had run out during the time we've been waiting. Of course that isn't free either. It's massively affecting jobs he is able to apply for etc. Not driving isn't really an option where we are in Scotland once you are an adult.

Yes, it's yet another way the youngsters have been screwed over by covid yet no one seems to care. They can't get "trainee" jobs because of all the staff working from home, so no one in offices to train them. Some are still suffering online lectures at Universities yet paying the same tuition fees. The list just goes on.

@Testina.

Her plan was to get her license out of the way and then go travelling. She wanted her driving done first so that when she comes back she doesn’t have to then face learning to drive.

But after being a learner for over 2 years she has given up and is going travelling anyway.

Admittedly that’s her choice and it’s not the DVSA’s problem that she doesn’t want the August test they’ve booked for her.

But so many other young people are being completely shafted when it comes to employment opportunities and having a social life, especially those from lower income families who can’t afford endless lessons to keep their skill up, or who can’t afford to travel hundreds of miles for their tests.

Also travelling miles away to different regions of the country to get a test earlier isn’t a solution either. If you pass then great for you but you’ve potentially had to spend loads of extras on top of the rest fee and you’ve taken away availability for local people hence making the problem worse.

The issue of continuing to pay for driving lessons was the main reason my nephew gave up, he's from a low income family where noone has a car so he has no option of practice outside his lessons. He felt he needed two lessons a week otherwise he lost confidence with driving, and given the limited availability of local instructors and the likelihood of waiting 4-6 months minimum for a test (and then again if he failed, which isn't unusual for modern driving tests) it just seemed like an endless money pit.