‘I travelled 10 hours for a driving test’: Desperate learners taking extreme measures over long waiting list
A woman has claimed she was forced to book a driving test 10 hours away as learner drivers are increasingly desperate to take the test and long waits are expected to continue until 2026 and beyond.
Latest figures from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) show the current average waiting time for a driving test nationally is 22 weeks, with the latest figures from November showing. There are 638,270 people on the advanced reservation list.
Experts warn the backlog could continue for another two years after an estimated 1 million tests were blocked during Covid-19 restrictions five years ago. The DVSA said problems persisted as demand increased, people booked tests early and bots and brokers quickly snapped up slots to sell.
Transport Minister Heidi Alexander previously said the Labor government had “inherited a huge backlog” and was “moving quickly” to tackle the problem, but in November she admitted the government would not be able to meet its target of reducing waiting times to seven weeks by summer 2026.
With long waiting lists that will continue into the new year, many learner drivers are taking extreme measures to ensure they can take the test.
Colette Bodde, 29, said: Independent He said he eventually passed his test in Fort William, a town in the Highlands, almost 10 hours from his home in London.
He said the government’s booking system was “just a dead end” and that tests “were not immediately available” when he tried them.
Ms Bodde, who chose Scotland so she could borrow her mother’s car rather than pay for a trainer’s vehicle, was keen to get her driver’s license because it “sounded like a useful life skill” and “sounded like something I should be able to do when I’m 28”.
Londoner Rafa James, 18, booked his test 200 miles away in Carmarthen, Wales, after feeling “under time pressure” to pass while traveling in January and not wanting to “get left behind” and have to start over when he returns later in the year.
The DVSA described the booking system as “cumbersome and frustrating due to the constant lack of available test dates indefinitely”.
Mr James said he had spent a “significant amount of money on train tickets” and felt he was at an “immediate disadvantage” as he was not used to driving in the area.
Halima Abdi, 21, said she had woken up at 5am every Monday for five months, registered for an exam, and eventually landed in Birmingham, almost three hours away, to take one.
The Londoner said the situation was “extremely difficult”, adding: “My family and friends told me it was best to choose somewhere further away because they were more likely to make room for me.”
Ms Abdi, a student journalist, described carrying a heavy-duty camera set on trains as “stressful” and called on the DVSA to put those who need a driving test in order to work on the priority list.
The National Audit Office (NAO) warned earlier this month that the backlog would not be resolved until November 2027. The watchdog found that around one in three students have resorted to paying up to £500 to a third party to secure a test place.
NAO President Gareth Davies said: “The current system of providing driving tests in England, Scotland and Wales is not working satisfactorily due to long waiting times and the exploitation of learner drivers by sellers of test slots.”
Onward booking figures have fallen to 29,858 so far this year from a peak of 668,128 in September, and the government said it was “taking decisive action to reduce driving test waiting lists by making more testing possible”.
DVSA told Independent: “We conducted more than 14,400 tests in October 2025 compared to October 2024.
“Following our recent consultation, we are also changing the driving test booking system to ensure it works fairly for everyone and to make it easier for genuine students to book their test.”
Changes include ensuring that only learner drivers, rather than instructors, can book tests, and only two edits (including moves, swaps and position changes) can be made to the test before it has to be canceled and rebooked in order to beat dealers.
Learner drivers will be restricted to a limited number of testing centers located near the original booking, and 36 military driver examiners will also help carry out up to a further 6,500 tests over the course of a year.
But AA Driving School chief executive Emma Bush warned learner drivers were seeing their “mobility and employment opportunities” affected by continued “excessive and restrictive waiting times”.
He said the situation could improve slightly next year due to additional support from military driving inspectors. “The reservation system needs to be tightened” [also] “Reduce the leeway that allows unscrupulous test vendors to profit from students’ misery,” he added.
But he stressed that for the backlog to truly improve in 2026, “long-term, sustainable action is what is needed to bring waiting times back to pre-Covid levels. There needs to be a focus on retaining existing examiners, as well as recruiting more examiners so that greater numbers of tests can be delivered sustainably.”
