To be livid at the Govs lack of action over the shambles around driving tests

[WynterQueen]

longer than expected

DS passed his theory test, and we booked his practical test. The first test was five months away at a random location, and I watched DVSA like a hawk to get a change to our preferred centre; the date was about the same.

In desperation, as he was nearer to ready to take a test, I used a black market site to get a change and nearly lost my money. These sites will only let you pay via PayPal and using friends and family, so there is no buyer protection. I refused, used goods and services and they wouldn't deal with me. Paypal paid me back after 28 days.

I tried another site and got a change, in my preferred centre for 6 weeks earlier. Cost £120 + £62 original test cost.

He failed, not through a lack of lessons, just an idiot van driver ... anyway he failed. That's life, only 47% pass first time. The odds were against him that morning.

I rebooked on DVSA. The first test anywhere in the country wasi halfway up the country in mid-April 2025. I took it.

Now I'm back on the black market again, the 'safe' place I used before has nothing until early March.

I found another site, but again, they will only accept payments from friends and family (no buyer protection). I am now sitting here with bated breath to see if I have been scammed out of another £122. I have 20 mins before I know

Anyway, my AIBU is, why are the Government doing nothing about this? Why can't they go back to the system of one learner who can book one test at a time and stop the bot's bulk buying tests using the Driving Instructor system bypass?

The place I have just used has offered me four different PayPal addresses and a bank account, all in different names. I hold little hope they are genuine. Particularly las they kept calling me Ma'am. WTF. Nobody in the UK addresses me like that.

Perhaps we need an MN list of black market sites with which we have had genuine transactions to help others feel more secure when working on the underbelly of the driving test market to get our children's tests.

Your are NOT BU
The Gov need to act

You are BU
Its a free market let scammers make money

@SleepToad This. I passed back in nineties and there were no long waits for tests. So it's not true that this.has always been the case.

The system sounds ridiculous and like it needs an overhaul to me.

It worked ok for my DS as he passed first time. The driving instructor booked the test when he started lessons, and the timing was pretty perfect. If he'd failed though, having to wait 6+ months for your next test with all the costs of the extra lessons would have been really frustrating and expensive..

@MyNameIsErinQuin it really isn't just about making lives easier for people. Where I live there are huge numbers of people who do need to drive to get to work as the public transport does not exist for them to get there any other way.

People who can't drive tend to move to areas where they can work etc without needing to drive.

@EmmaMaria governments are supposed to be able to fix more than one problem at a time. That is why the public sector has different departments and employs such huge numbers of people.

The long waiting times for tests arose from the pandemic backlog initially. Arguably we should have not stopped driving lessons & tests for so long in the first place. But the situation has been made worse by people block booking tests. Bots are definitely one of the reasons why this is not improving despite more tests being made available to help clear the pandemic backlog.

The government could definitely clamp down on the bots and help improve the situation.

I could start on why we need people to get to work and improve the economy but governments (I'm not pointing the finger at any particular party, they all seem clueless) seem hell bent on destroying economic growth and therefore leaving less money to improve the NHS etc.

Oh great!
That’s even worse then.

I guess there is still a way around the gov stopping it though. But that’s pretty annoying to know.

It’s causing a real problem for healthcare students who have placements. I have dozens and dozens of 18 even 19yo students who can’t take their test and can’t drive. Their placements are scattered throughout a rural county. We try to only send the car drivers to the villages but it’s a headache as we don’t have enough public transport accessible placements to go round.

People quit the course over this as they find it so stressful 🤷‍♀️. I have 18yos living in nurses accommodation at a hospital 40 miles away as they can’t drive. They feel isolated and depressed, sharing a flat with middle aged medics. If they could drive they could stay in their uni halls and drive to the hospital daily.

There's up to a 6 month wait for tests in my area so ds booked his theory for the first week of his driving lessons, the second week he booked his test date for 4 months later and we made sure he was ready for that date. Luckily he passed as not sure what the wait would have been if we had to re book the test.

When dds did their tests about 6 years ago they booked their test when they were ready and didn't have to wait long at all. One of my dds needed a retest and it was 2 weeks later.

laurie you're not allowed to book more than one test at a time. So you can't have back up practical (or theory) tests booked in case you fail.

When I failed in the 90's I only had to wait 6 weeks for the next one.

TestShift app costs a one off fee of £15 - you add your details and preferences and it lets you choose cancellations until you pass for the one off flat fee of £15.
Our son passed in the summer.

I booked whatever test I could get with the DVSA which was 8 months away and about 2 hours from us.
Within days the app notified me of a test centre I wanted, then the cancellation dates arrived by app notification. He got a test with 10 days notice and he passed first time. He did also ask his driving instructor what dates he was free, so he knew that he could take a cancellation on set dates. Not all the apps are scams but yes, it’s a disgraceful way to do things.

Yep it's a nightmare. Our test centre is apparently particularly bad. Dd2 had waited 8 months for her test in January, and it's not even local to us, but three towns away as that was all that was available.

It's people like you who are dealing with these rip off sites that are adding to the problem. If there is no supply and demand then these sites can't exist, people should go down the proper routes.

Both my children say tests in the gaps between covid lockdowns with waits of approx 5- 8months and tbh driving test centres have never recovered since covid as they still have huge waits for tests.

That's life, they just had to accept it.

@WynterQueen I genuinely do not understand how the black marketeers can purchase these tests when an individual has to put their details and driver number in for the application!! how the hell does it work??

ADI can book multiple tests for their students. That way they can put forward the learner who is the most ready each time. That way their pass statistics are good as the most ready student usually passes.

Test resellers can set up as a business duping this.

Some shonky instructors also sell on valid details, some people also use resellers, willingly putting their details out there to be sold on.

You can change the details on a test once you have one... some people simply are not ready in time for instance, or manage to get a cancellation on the website etc.

These sites shouldn't be allowed to purchase the tests, if this was stopped then these sites and apps wouldn't exist.
However since they do exist if I wanted a test I wouldn't be a martyr to the cause and refuse to use it while everyone else uses them and gets their tests.
Stop blaming the people for using what is being allowed by the test centres/dvla or whoever allows bulk booking tests without checks.

It is completely unworkable and unsafe.

There are people who 'fluke tests'.. and get on the road and are dangerous. Equally a number of people who struggle being watched and fail - even though they are are safe.

How will that change? If someone becomes an unsafe driver because they are being "watched" then they are not safe to drive. So many people claim "oh Person is a good driver, would have passed if not for..." and it simply isn't true.

The driving test is to test whether someone is safe to drive several tonnes of metal at speed through areas filled with vulnerable road users. The test needs to be robust, not handed off to someone with an incentive to pass as many as possible.

if the current pass rate is 45% the system is flawed.

No, it means that too many are put in for the test too soon.

The problem that those who were learning in Covid and due to lockdowns and restrictions couldn't get on and pass their test is huge. There are large numbers of non drivers among the early 20's much higher than normal. I suspect had this been something impacting the older generation it may have been tackled.

Well some of us would rather live an honest life rather than give scammers and people on the black market money!

Only fools are the people who are paying extra for the tests.

Government have bigger problems than driving tests

Fools or people who can't wait 6 months to so much as book a test for a further 6 months away?
If government can't solve a simple problem like stopping driving test swaps then we're all fucked.

It’s got worse since Covid and the wait times seem to be getting worse all the time rather than improving. If it was a Covid backlog you’d expect it to be improving.

dd’s lessons were halted due to lockdown. She started back up as soon as allowed. The test booking was a slight nightmare. You’d log on the site at 7am and be something like 60,000 in the queue and then get kicked off at 3pm having never got to the front of the queue. But managed on day 3 to get her a test booked locally for a few weeks later.

Back then I don’t recall all these sites selling test slots.

I took my test in the 1970s in South London, I had to wait 9 weeks.
The wait is not new. It's the black market trading on impatience that is.

Yep. Really not the highest priority after 14 years of tories fucking all public services up!

I don’t blame you OP

My ds passed his test about 18 months ago. It was an utter nightmare stalking the govt website and I also had a paid app looking for cancellations (didn’t work well). This took hours and hours of my time.

This problem has been going on for years. Neither government of either colour gives a shit at all. Both well aware and inactive about it. 5 months is plenty long enough for Labour to have at least started to take steps to remedy this.

My dd will be 17 soon so I’ll be at it again. So many of my eldest’s friends have gone to uni without having passed their test because of this debacle.

Some people evidently have no idea how bad things are. It's not a case of whining about having to wait. It's often impossible to book a test at all, no matter how far advance. Your 9 week wait would be in the wildest dreams of someone trying to book in my town today - you'll wait 9 months here and still be no closer to even booking one.

It’s very straightforward, make the buying, and selling, of a driving test, in any place other than via the .Gov.Uk website, a criminal offence.

It could be even more straightforward than that. Stop name changes. Tests can only be taken by the person who books.

We have departments for all different things. The department of health isn’t expected to fix this, so I don’t consider the NHS of any relevance to this.

This is the job of the DVSA. They should put the test cost up to get money to do it. People are spending the money on cancellation finding apps and on the black market and on extra driving lessons. So I don’t believe putting the price of tests would actually hurt people who need to pay for those tests.