The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has set out the details of a key new rule for driving tests from this April as the public body looks to help more drivers get on the road.
From 8 April, drivers will need to give 10 full working days’ notice to change or cancel their car driving test without losing the test fee. This is down from just three days at the moment.
The DVSA says the change is being made to ensure that no available appointment slots go unused. When a learner cancels their test, it becomes available to others to take up. However, many who are not ready to take their driving test “leave it until the last moment to change or cancel it,” the DVSA explains.
But with only three days notice, learner drivers often don’t take up these slots.
“By asking learner drivers to give more notice, it should give other people more chance to use the appointment. This will help to reduce driving test waiting times,” the DVSA said.
DVSA will be emailing all learner drivers to inform them of the change. The public body says that there only a few exceptional circumstances which will allow for less than 10 days’ notice, including illness, bereavement, or an academic exam.
The agency also repeats its call all learner drivers to ensure they cancel their tests if they cannot attend, rather than simply not turning up. Firstly, this ensures the £62 fee is not lost. But it also adds that around 60,000 tests went unused in 2024 because of no-shows – the same number of tests that 45 full-time driving examiners could do in a year.
The change is just one part of a seven-step plan announced in January to bring improvements to the current system. The DVSA has also announced that it will be recruiting 450 driving examiners across the country to improve the availability of tests.
Other steps include changes to the system used by driving instructors to book tests in an attempt to free up more slots, as well as a call for evidence to examine how to prevent candidates being ripped off by third parties buying up slots.
The agency is also consulting on a proposal to increase the amount of time drivers have to wait to take another test in ‘certain situations’. These might include making multiple serious faults during their driving test, physically or verbally assault their driving examiner, and failure to attend their driving test without telling DVSA.
The plan outline adds that it is also considering implementing a fine for no-shows, in a bid to further discourage the practice.
Announcing the seven-step plan, Lilian Greenwood, minister for the future of roads, said: “Passing your driving test is a life changing opportunity for millions – but sky-high waiting times for tests in recent years have denied that opportunity to too many people.
“No one should have to wait six months when they’re ready to pass, travel to the other side of the country to take a driving test or be ripped off by unscrupulous websites just because they can’t afford to wait.
“The scale of the backlog we have inherited is huge, but today’s measures are a crucial step to tackle the long driving test wait times, protect learner drivers from being exploited, and support more people to hit the road.”
In October a parliamentary debate heard that delays to driving tests had hit trainee paramedics and an aspiring police officer. Labour’s Kevin McKenna told MPs that he met a constituent whose daughter was “desperate” to become a police officer.
The MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey in Kent said: “She can’t start a job because she needs to be able to drive for the job, she’ll be working in shifts, all she could find was a driving test months down the line in Birmingham, 150 miles away. She’s one of the luckier constituents in that she could actually find one.”
