‘Booking a driving test is like queuing for Glastonbury tickets’

Some people used Easter Monday’s bank holiday as an opportunity to have a very necessary lie.

No Stephen Dawes, who established his alarm for 05:45. It wasn’t to start working or take a train, I just wanted to book your driving exam.

When he logged in the website of the driver’s agency and vehicles (DVSA), he entered an online tail “almost like buying a festival ticket,” he says.

“It was number 11000 in the tail.”

The 26 -year -old, who lives in Newcastle, begins to learn to drive in February. His instructor told him about a few months to reserve his practical test, but every time Stephen looked, the only spaces available in Berwick-Upon-Tweed or Scarborough, both more than an hour by car.

After looking online, he discovered that the trick was logging at 06:00 on Monday, when the DVSA launches new spaces. But some people say it has been having one trying for several weeks.

Stephen’s experience reflects those of other apprenticeship drivers throughout the United Kingdom, who tell BBC News who are on a path to nothing to obtain a driving exam reserved for the presentation of turn tests. Some only pay for applications that alert them when the slots are available.

BBC Verify found this week that the average waiting time in the 319 driving test centers in Great Britain was 22 weeks, with three quarters of centers that reach the maximum average waiting time of 24 weeks.

The Secretary of Transportation, Heidi Alexander, promised to reduce the average waiting time to no more than seven weeks for the summer of 2026, a deadline that the Government had previously established by the end of 2025.

She said that the current situation was “totally unacceptable” and that the ministers would aim to clear the accumulation of measures such as duplicating the training capacity of the examiner and reintroducing incentives for payment of overtime.

Pauline Reeves, director of DVSA driving services, told the BBC that the organization had “progressed significantly” in reducing waiting times since last December, but customers were not seeing this yet.

Jodie Johnston, an instructor to drill in Exeter, compares the reservation of a test to the annual infamous scrolla to buy tickets for the Glastonbury Festival, and say that some students in London, where the demand may be higher, travel 200 miles to take their tests.

“It is easier to pass a test than to reserve a test at this time,” adds Ali Slade, a management instructor in Farnham.

A consequence of the long waiting list is that many students are trying to reserve their practical examination, despite the DVSA advice indicating that the students’ drivers should reserve it when they are “ready for the test.”

And when students Angely get a slot, for some it is so anticipated that they have to disburse extra money on update lessons.

Some students say they are also worried about their theoretical evidence that expires, since they only last two years, and you need one to take a practical test.

Many handling schools have long waiting lists for lessons. Ali says that his is about seven months. Therefore, it can be difficult for students’ drivers to align the search for an instructor, approve his theory test and reserve a practical exam.

This was the experience of her Davis, 26, of Leeds, who says that his instructor told him to reserve his test as soon as he began to learn.

“I had to reserve the way before being ready for a test and guess when it would be ready,” she says. At that time, when he looked, he struggled to find any space in his area or at the right time.

In the end, he reserved a test for several months, and then paid £ 18 for a mobile application that allowed him to change his test to a previous date, in April 2024, so it would be attentive to maintain payment for more lessons when Aldady felt.

Applications such as these alert users when the slots are available through other students who cancel their tests. The DVSA says that it does not support any application that finds cancellations.

“She simply felt the only way,” she says.

Lauren Devlin had postponed the use of thesis applications, but he worries that he soon stays with little option.

“I felt a little scam … but at this point, I may just have to try,” she says.

Lauren, 37, obtained his driver’s license in New Jersey, USA, when he was 16 years old. When the United Kingdom was moved for the first time, he trusted public transport to move, but has decided that he would now like to drive.

Lauren estimates that he has already spent about £ 2,000 on driving lessons, two theories and a practical test in the summer of 2024 that failed.

She has another test scheduled for August, for which she had to get up early in multiple soft to join the online tail before she could reserve.

But he worries what happens if he is canceled, or if he fails, since his theory certificate only lasts until next March.

So what is the cause of the current situation? A DVSA spokesman has blamed an “increased demand and a change in customer reserve behavior” for accumulation.

DVSA data show that the number of people who take practical management tests collapsed the duration of the blockages in 2020 and 2021. There was an increase between September 2023 and March 2024, but the prepaandem number. Little less than 450,000 practical driving tests were tasks between July and September 2024, as shown in the most recent data.

The DVSA also says that the bones have bones buying some test slots and then resell them at inflated prices. The agency says that a high -speed consultation in May will be aimed at “improving the reserve system and blocking bots to access the tests.”

For some people, the difficulty of reserving a test is too stress. Libby Murphy says he is “renounced” after failing his test in February, after having canceled two previous evidence by the trial center (the DVSA says he only cancels the tests in “exceptional circumstances” and then offers).

Libby, who is 26 years old and lives in Liverpool, says that she had more than 100 hours of lessons and feels that her decision will damage her professional goal of being a corridor in the film industry.

As she says: “I have spent grandchildren and big and I have nothing at all.”