Shropshire Star

Star comment: Learners being put through L

The long wait that is being faced by learner drivers in Shropshire before getting a driving test is not only lousy customer service but undesirable on a number of grounds.

Published

Some driving instructors are reporting that their pupils are facing delays of 10 weeks or more in the county before getting the chance to put all that they have learned into practice before an examiner.

A lot of these people will be young drivers for whom the use of a car opens up a new world in terms of job opportunities in a county like Shropshire, where those living in the rural parts are shut out of the urban employment market if they cannot drive because of the simple fact that it is virtually impossible to get to work otherwise.

An institutionally inefficient driving test system is unfair to them and makes it more difficult for them to pass.

Practice makes perfect, they say, and if there is a significant gap between your driving lessons and the test, then you get out of practice – and that perfect performance in your final lesson which convinced your instructor that you are more than ready will be a somewhat rusty performance weeks down the line after your visit to the test centre.

It is understandable that some instructors are reacting to this unhappy state of affairs by making sure that their pupils are booked in very early in the process, in the expectation that 10 weeks or so down the line they will be ready, and the long wait for the test date will be filled by learning.

But this means that those welcome words so many pupils of yesteryear have heard – "I think you're ready to take your test now" – are being replaced by the crossed fingers approach of "You're not ready, but if all goes well you will be on test day".

Some pupils take a long time to gain the skills and confidence to reach an acceptable standard of driving, and with such a long lead-in to arrange test dates the temptation must be to take the test anyway and hope for the best, rather than cancelling the test and facing a delay of months before it can be taken again.

The underlying problem appears to be a shortage of examiners coupled with a rise in demand.

The system is creaking, interrupting the smooth transition from the process of learning under instruction to that of going solo and gaining experience. It is hard to see how that could make for safer roads.

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