A staff exodus and a broken booking system are helping to cause huge jams in Britain’s driving test system
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t has long been a stressful rite of passage for many young people but, in recent years, passing the actual driving test is the easy part. Now, many people seeking a test need to wake up early to snag a date before the bots do and, even then, they are looking at a long and arduous wait.
Despite moves from the government to address the issue, an audit report released this week found plans to cut the wait for a driving test to seven weeks by the end of the year would not be achieved until November 2027.
One of the main barriers is an exodus of driving examiners. Only a net 83 more driving test examiners have been hired despite 19 recruitment campaigns since 2021, with the average wait for a practical test now at 22 weeks across Great Britain, according to the National Audit Office.
