The DVSA’s ‘Ready to Pass?’ campaign, recently launched to improve the results of driving test candidates, seems to be a step in the right direction. Anything that can be done to improve the frankly appalling 47% driving test pass rate from November of last year has to be a good thing.
There is a lot the DVSA can do to help with the pass rate, some they have done and some they could still do. For example, they could accept appeals based on evidence from dash cam footage where an examiner has made a questionable decision.
In the vast majority of cases the examiners make the right call and I’m not meaning to say that they don’t. Sometimes they don’t and it needs to be addressed. I’m thinking of one particular test from my own history where the examiner failed the candidate for going too slow in a certain situation.
On reviewing the dash cam footage, my opinion was that the candidate was travelling too fast!
The ‘Ready to Pass?’ Campaign
The new ‘Ready to Pass?’ campaign gives candidates information on how to make sure they are ready for the driving test, how to track their progress, information on mock tests and test nerves and what to take to their driving test.
There is a website, readytopass.campaign.gov.uk, social media channels and materials for driving instructors to use. There is also a checklist, and it’s the checklist which causes me the most problems.
The big problem with ‘Ready to Pass?’
My main problem with ‘Ready to Pass?’ is that 60% of the checklist directly references using a driving instructor. Dealing with big nerves probably means finding a test nerves specialist instructor too so we can call it 80%.
But there is no requirement to ever speak to a driving instructor.
I know its easy for me, as one of the chaps who would financially benefit from the requirement to use an instructor, to say that every learner should have lessons with a professional driving instructor. The average learner would spend £1600 with an instructor for their entire course of lessons after all.
I’m not saying that everyone has to use a current driving instructor for all of their training, though I wouldn’t object if they did. What I am saying is that every learner looking to book a driving test should be signed off by a driving instructor.
Motorcycle training, bus training and lorry driver training already have a system in place where tests are booked by a training provider rather than the candidate. This not only reduces the number of no-shows, but also ensures that the candidates presenting for test have been assessed by a professional.
Putting the same system in place for car tests would not only likely increase the pass rate, but would also relieve the pressure on the booking system.
If the DVSA wants to simultaneously increase the driving test pass rate and eliminate the test backlog, deal with the problem of the cancellation apps blocking tests and encourage more people into the driver training industry, making it so that all driving test bookings need to be confirmed must be confirmed with a driving instructors ID number.
Cost could be an issue here. However I would gladly offer a service of a mock test prior to test booking. Yes, I would want paying for that service but if spending £80 with me to have a single attempt at your driving test rather than saving that money and spending £62 each for three attempts to pass, you are saving money.
