Disgusted at the corruption of the DVLA and all the scamming around driving tests

[ManyBooksLittleTime]

Both my children are trying to pass their driving tests. In the area in which we live, and several centres surrounding this, individuals buy up ALL the driving tests using bots to purchase them all. It is impossible to buy your own test. The Instructors, including 'reputable' companies, recommend who to buy the test from. The tests are sold for £160 -500. Then the student is encouraged to pay for an hour driving lesson before the test and use of the car during the test.
My son's last test cost £340 all in and my daughter's £360. She got into the police, but couldn't join as she couldn't pass her test in time! It's soul destroying. AIBU to think that the the government/police should step in? This should be an illegal practice. At the moment the examiners and instructors must be getting massive backhanders and it's very much in the interest if the examiners to just keep failing the students. I'm so angry and frustrated! It just seems like very open corruption.

Yes. This is scamming and this is corruption.

me too! Been trying for weeks to get one

It makes me laugh when people say things like "everyone should retake their driving test after x number of years" or "all over 70s should retake their test ".

Where would all these extra test slots come from? We can't manage the tests we've got.

Totally agree OP. It’s mad here (NW Kent) the next test at our preferred test centre is 25th Jan 2025! We have one booked in Worthing in November. These block booking companies should be banned.

1. Stop the ability to be able to change the date, time and location once the initial test is booked. So full cancellation and refund only. Possibly small cancellation fee to stop people from booking before they are ready.

(Last year you could make 6 changes - ridiculous!)

1. Link the driving test booking website to the driving license website - same login details so only genuine drivers can book the test in the first place.

In this day and age they could have the above done by the end of next week and the whole thing is sorted.

Erm, not very likely I'm afraid. Unless you've worked on IT systems, you may not realise that while some changes may look minor on the surface they actually require a LOT of redesign at the lowest levels of code. And example of this was someone wanting to do what they thought would be a minor tweak to an app we were producing, but when we had the impact assessment done we found that because of the original design it would take at least 6 months, and cost (in man hour terms) somewhere around £250,000. It needed a change at the very bottom level of code, which also affected other areas which would need to be rewritten.

Always consider incompetence or cost cutting before crying corruption!

It’s actually a very simple fix to implement. Just take the DVSA B2B site off line. This is the site that allows block bookings and re-registering bookings to a different provisional licence number.

The touts aren’t using the consumer site, they are registered instructors abusing the B2B site.

Appointments booked on the consumer site cannot be transferred, so would be of no use to the touts.

It’s London

@ManyBooksLittleTime

Driving tests are released at 6am every Monday morning. Set an alarm, get the soonest one available booked and then sign up to ‘Testi’ app. The app costs about £15 I think but my partner failed many tests and can still use the app now. Never had to pay that £15 again.

I assume the driving instructors know the test dates are released then but aren’t telling students for a reason! They aren’t just released for back of the queue either- some are only a few weeks away each time x

We had a very decent Instructor. He gave us reasonable notice when the kids would be ready. We logged on on Mondays at 6am and just accepted a test date six months from then which was the right time for them to be ready. Our instructor did ask if we wanted to swap a date once or twice with another student but we declined.

Instructors should not be allowed to book blocks of tests. It should be left to the students. That is an easy solution surely?

It's much better if instructors book the tests because they know they are available and their car is available. And they can move the tests around among their pupils, so if someone is ready sooner than expected, they can swap them with someone who's taking longer to get ready.

If pupils book, then you don't know if your instructor is even around that day. Yes you can do it in eg a parent's car but do you want to do that when you've learnt in a different one? It might be difficult/expensive for your parent to get insurance as well.

It's not the instructors who are causing the problems. It's all the apps that need to be blocked.

All this has been caused by the silly rules during covid (funnily enough they managed to continue lessons and tests in other countries) and the fact that they don't have the examiners to cover it.

I wonder if they should temporarily change the age at which you can learn to drive to 18 but then I wonder if it would just delay the problem.

Huge good luck to your girl. She she should not have to worry about the logistics too.

There is a huge amount of luck with passing driving tests I think too. One of my kids was not a natural driver. She herself said that the examiner (a friendly middle aged woman) and she had instant banter and chatted about clubbing and university life (the examiner was from there) and they got on well. She’s convinced that that is how she passed first time because of their rapport and was relieved and delighted. She crashed the car soon (thankfully nobody hurt) after passing. I am not sure what to believe about her feedback from the test. But if she is right, that is a worry. I hope she was exaggerating.

Remember the old phone line back in the 80s possibly in Acton

Always engaged or rang forever

Stopping exploitation of the service for ADIs to book and manage tests
We know that some businesses exploit the system that was designed for ADIs to book and manage driving tests for their pupils.
On 9 January 2023 we introduced stricter terms and conditions for using the service. We’ve also tightened up the way we monitor the usage of this system.
We’re going to be making some more changes to the terms and conditions soon. These will include:

• stopping users from using the service if they cancel 20% or more of their tests in the 10 working days leading up to the test (those who cancel in the 3 working days before the test will also continue to lose the test fee)
• making sure that accounts have an ADI linked to them – if they do not, the account will be suspended

We’ll confirm when these changes will take affect nearer the time and will contact all users of the service to keep them informed.

This is from a link posted by a pp.

making sure that accounts have an ADI linked to them – if they do not, the account will be suspended. I find that absolutely shocking, so you don't actually have to be a driving instructor to access that service? What a bloody stupid system. I agree with pp, that whole system needs to be shut down if it can't be run sensibly. Supposedly this scamming shouldn't be happening (according to website below) but it would appear that the DVSA are doing fuck all about it. Maybe it's worth reporting your DI to the DVSA OP?

Which app age you thinking of please as I reviewed the testi app and it had very bad reviews. Infact the app uses a 6 year old review to promote itself.

friends son joined the police 3-4 years ago and passed his test after he'd joined.

@Oopstoo we used testi and driving test now Get one you can preset to book the test for you not more than £20 for use til you pass your test.

Update- thankfully my daughter passed today. 4th time lucky! I'm so happy for her! One down and one to go. Hopefully. Not hundreds and hundreds more for him to pass! We'll see. I've no faith in the system as it stands.

That's fantastic news @ManyBooksLittleTime . What a weight off your mind. Well done your dd!

Well done to your daughter OP.

Congratulations to your daughter @ManyBooksLittleTime!

I was thinking about this today and I just don't really know why anyone needs to be allowed to block book tests - surely if the block booking system is being abused you just remove it and make people book their tests individually. It seems like a simple solution unless I'm missing something?

It's happening all over the country and is a huge problem, there was a discussion about it only the other day on Radio 2. Sad thing is at the moment it's entirely legal and no one is trying to stop it.

My sons just booked his through instructor.

Face value £62. He's paid £135 for it. Earliest test was Nov (with possibility of switching earlier - but he wanted a firm date to aim towards.)

No idea why you think having an hour's lesson before a test and paying for the use of the instructors car dying the test is somehow corrupt? That is standard practice unless you are doing your own or a parent's car!

“Stopping the ability to swap tests means the scam will fall to pieces. It’s the only solution. But the DVSA won’t do it“ - there is a Guardian report about it.
I too is a victim of this. Really feel for you, op.

Seems to be run like a third world country. What a shame!