To want to know why the government hasn’t sorted out the driving test booking mess yet

[Iwantatest]

You literally can’t book a test thanks to bots and block booking. Go it on at 6 and just put in a 20 000 queue going down very slowly.Even if I was to get on it would be 6 months.

They know bots and block booking are a problem so why aren’t they sorting it?

They're really letting young people down.

not sure where you live but nationally it’s much more common for a self employed person. The large driving schools charge the instructor a huge amount for a car and pupils and it’s very difficult to make a living under those franchised conditions but that’s a by the way. Local ADis do help each other out but the issue is lack of test slots available. It’s rare that 2 ADIs in a small geographical area will have 2 pupils who are in those circumstances.

There was a consultation about this a few months ago (I think we were invited to participate just after passing).

Luckily DD(18) passed this summer.

Once she had passed her theory we spent 3 x Monday 6am’s trying to book her a test ANYWHERE and ended up booking her into a test centre 75 miles away in Wales 5 months later. (Her instructor had told her to try to get things sorted after the second or third lesson). I think I had to go through 4 or 5 pages of ‘close’ sites before I found one.

I spent £10 on the Testi app and was able to get alerts for 3 “local” test centres. It took me a couple of months, but I eventually managed to get a local centre about 7 weeks earlier than the one we had booked. It was quite a late switch, and not the centre she’d been practising near, so she spent a couple of days studiously looking at old test routes from the site on Youtube and DH took her out for about 10 hours too.

If DC is ready to sit their test I thought there was an option to look for “short notice” tests? I think you might need a test booked to be able to swap, though.

It must be such a nightmare for rural kids.

Why on earth don’t they allow the passing of the theory test to last longer than two years. There are millions of drivers who have never even taken one because they didn’t exist back in the day. Surely things don’t change so often that a theory test will be out of date so quickly. If they did then it would be necessary to keep testing existing drivers wouldn’t it.

I understand that well.
It's so frustrating isn't it. I do wish they would take into account those of us that need adjustments/higher priority or at least the different impact it has on us.

DD had the testi app, which worked really well. She then also phoned up once, because she was locked out for making too many changes, which is an anti bot device. The call handler was great, and booked her in manually, and locally. Maybe she just got lucky, or they have better access.

Why should instructors be able to book tests though? Why not leave it to each learner, then everyone would be in the same boat. Surely the driving instructors in this case MUST be using bots? It’s impossible for me to find any tests at any time on any date within an hours drive from me. I have been trying countless times for weeks. How are instructors doing this without bot?

Booking a doctor's appointment is pretty much the same. It's insane. And utterly depressing.

They are addressing this. Changes take time UK opens up more driving test slots to help reduce backlog | Automotive industry | The Guardian

The people doing this are outside the UK so penalties against the seller will be difficult. Proceeding against the purchaser won't pass the public opinion test when HMG seems unable to stop this happening.

How do providers of high demand services such as sporting events or concerts protect themselves from this sort of menace?

Easily fixed. One passed theory test allows one practical test to be booked at the nearest centre to the postcode listed on the provisional driving license.

I've not read TFT but if everyone who's posted here booked a surgery appointment with their local MP and asked them to raise it, or even wrote a letter to them, it might get things moving. MPs pay attention when things are raised with them, especially if it's a local problem like no local tests.

Not just letting young people down. Some of us didn’t have parents to pay for lessons we had to wait until we were adults.

Someone on another thread pointed out that they should make it so you can’t change the name on a booked test- either the person who books it takes it or, if they can’t, they cancel it. This would quickly eradicate the bot booking issues, at least until they sort something better out.

No they’ve in no way shape or form improved the system if at 6 am you go on to book and are immediately in a queue of 20,000 and when after an hour in said queue you reach the top and everything is gone. This is on the only day they release slots. It is impossible to book a test so the system is in a complete and utter unusable mess.

Also from that article “The government recently consulted on amending the driving test booking system to try to stop bots mass-booking new slots to be resold on the hidden market for inflated prices.” That is not doing anything. You’ve consulted so now do something.

They have been ‘addressing’ it since 2023 and it’s now worse than ever.

Because once they’ve booked it they have control for all of their learners so can swap and change to use them effectively. They have a large number of instructors in the franchise covering a fairly large area geographically. As I said they seem to have a high first time pass rate so it is an efficient use of the available test slots. Why would you want to make it less efficient?

It took them a couple of weeks to get each of our dc a date after they’d passed their theory tests and they were both about 6 months away. It’s part of the service that they offer and we were very glad of it.

Not in UK but it sounds terrible. What are "ticking over" lessons ? Can't the mum and dad do that or is that not allowed? It does sound like it could be fixed in a day by a half-decent programmer. How strange that they aren't doing it? It would cost almost nothing. Having had 3 go through getting their licence here I feel your pain though. Our pain is the 120 hour log book that you have to fill out before they can have a test, saying that they have driven 120 hours. Driving Instructors count for more hours and theirs a ridiculous group class that costs a lot but gets you 30 hours - total rort. The rest is up to mum or/and dad. Gosh 120 hours is a long time , especially when you x by 3.

But this is unfair on people who are not using an instructor. The instructors are controlling all the tests, exactly as you describe, and making it much harder for individuals trying to book their own test.

Have done. And have suggested they make tests non transferable too

Agreed. The government should be trying to help all learners equally. Not everyone has thousands of pounds to spend on instructors.

It is crazy. If this problem was happening to a private company, they’d find a way to sort it quickly.

You’d think there are loads of obvious answers - like maybe 70% of slots only available to be booked directly by registered instructors for example, or back to the phone system, or non transferable slots - so they need to be booked on booking in the name of the person doing the test.

As for the government having other priorities right now - but the government isn’t just a few people. It’s the whole machine. There are enough ministers and junior ministers and thousands and thousands of civil servants that this should be the priority for someone.

Who introduced the driving test booking system we currently have?

Do you know how much it would cost to fix this mess introduced by the Tories?? and its been a mess for years, didn't complain then though did you?

All you ever do is moan and moan.

Fyi the Govt is introducing a whole raft of changes, banning block booking, more examiners, fines for no shows & instructors can only book tests for pupils they teach....

My teenager is in this position. Passed their theory test in June, got up at 6am on Monday to try and book a practical test. First week they were all gone by the time we got to the front of the queue (all locations within about 200 miles of us!). Second week managed to get a test 100 miles away for January. Then eventually managed to change it for a test at the local center also for January. We have just in the last month been able to bring it foward to december. This was by checking the site about 20 times a day!

We did get the testi app but it didn't help get any cancellations sooner.

For those saying, just have one test per provisional license, that;s what they are doing already. You can't book mulitple pracitcal tests. I have no idea how people are managing to work the system. But something is hideously wrong, and its just the most frustrating thing ever!

Yanbu it’s ridiculous and surely easy to fix

Please tell me how you booked two tests at the same time. Were you able to do this? Or did you just cancel the original test in the hope that the one you really wanted was still there when you came back to it?