‘It’s basically impossible’: pandemic backlog leaves learners struggling to sit driving tests

theguardian.com:

Learners are struggling to sit driving tests due to a chronic backlog of pupils due to the pandemic.

Here, a driving instructor and three learners share how they have been affected.

Chiedza Chogugudza has been searching for a driving instructor for well over a year. The 24-year-old molecular biology research analyst passed her theory test in April 2021 and found an instructor at the same time, but only completed four hours of practice before contracting Covid, leading the instructor to give her place to another learner. “Now I can’t even get an instructor to respond to me and I’ve contacted so many instructors and schools that I’ve lost count,” says Chogugudza, who lives in Richmond-upon-Thames, adding that she has found booking a test “basically impossible”.

When she sat her theory test last year, she never thought it might expire before she got her licence. The situation is made worse by having no family or friends nearby who could teach her to drive. “It’s disheartening,” she says, adding that the cost of lessons is increasing with fuel prices. “It’s only going to get more expensive. Average prices have gone from £28 per hour last summer to £35+.”

Like other leaners in London, when Nino Shankischvili, 34, tried to book a driving test at the beginning of this year, she couldn’t find any slots at local test centres. “It was a nightmare,” she says. Shankischvili holds a Georgian driving licence, and needed to sit the practical test in order to get a UK licence. Then a driving instructor she had a couple of lessons with told her he had a slot in a few days, and that it would cost £170. “I wasn’t sure what he meant at first, but then I found out that apparently instructors can bulk [book] test dates, and then resell them,” she