Military examiners will be deployed to rural areas to assist learner drivers in obtaining their licenses. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has announced decisive actions to prevent bots and third parties from booking driving tests and reselling them at inflated prices. Plans include utilizing military examiners to conduct tests for civilians, aiming to offer an additional 6,500 tests in high-demand locations over the next year.
To address the delay in booking tests, the Department for Transport will implement new regulations restricting test bookings solely to learners themselves, limiting changes to two per test, and enforcing proximity restrictions on test center options. This initiative aims to prevent third-party exploitation and scams targeting learner drivers seeking to book tests.
The move follows incidents of scamming where young learners fell victim to fraudulent third-party test bookings. Additionally, figures from the DVSA indicate that over 642,000 learners in Britain have future test bookings.
The Department for Transport will collaborate with the Ministry of Defence to deploy 36 Defence Driving Examiners for civilian driving tests, primarily focusing on car tests while accommodating vocational tests if necessary. The MoD will charge the DVSA £100,000 for utilizing these examiners.
Minister Al Carns of the Armed Forces expressed readiness to support civilian testing through the MoD, highlighting the professionalism and expertise military examiners bring to the process. Emma Bush, managing director of AA Driving School, emphasized the need for sustained efforts to reduce waiting times and eliminate exploitative practices in the driving test booking system.
