Metropol

A question to you all. To those of you who drive, can you remember how long the waiting list was for the practical driving test?

Just a quick straw poll as the one near me seems excessively long and its costing me hundreds of pounds, you'd have more chance of getting to see an NHS Dentist first!

I only passed my test last year and the average waiting time was between 6-9 weeks in the North East.

A real pain in the arse, if you ask me, especially if you pass your test on the 8th occasion!

It varied when I did mine. I was a 3rd time lucky person - first test was booked in early July 2000 but I had to wait until late October to do it. The second one was booked on the day I failed my first test but that one came around more quickly - on January 2nd, whilst the third test (again booked on the day I failed) was even less of a wait - 16th February.

Mine was going to be about 6 weeks, but luckily just at that second a cancellation came through that was only 2 weeks away.

I was lucky enough to pass first time and it took about 7 weeks for an available test date. It depends on the availability of your instructor too, you dont want one of these ones who only work on the 2nd Tuesday of the month which means lining their free time up with a test even more difficult. It's better to wait a while for the test and get the best possible practice in before it - that way you hopefully won't have to book a retest. Best of luck to you.

I did my bike test last year and was told when I applied for it that it would be at least 2 months, so I got a bit of a shock when I got a date 3 weeks later! Passed though. 8)

It all depends where you live, I booked my test at the end of August last year and that was booked for 21st October, luckily for my sake I passed first time, but I did have loads of lessons, due to my lazyness of booking the Test. In some areas such as Manchester the wait can be as long as 6 months I've heard, but in places like Northwich it's only a few weeks.

But as far as I'm aware it's usually about 6 weeks on average.

As was said before, I think where you live matters.

My local test centre had a waiting list of one month when I booked it last year (managed to pass first time) but another one not far from me had waiting times of a week.

It's a 15 week waiting list in Huddersfield!

Basically I failed by 1st attempt with a really stupid fault and now am having to wait all this time and more annoyingly have more lessons in the interim just for the sake of it!

It's a bit of a con if you ask me, they should employ more examiners, they only seem to have about 3 or 4 working at any one time which is a bit poor for the biggest "town" in England.

Andrew wrote:It's a bit of a con if you ask me, they should employ more examiners, they only seem to have about 3 or 4 working at any one time which is a bit poor for the biggest "town" in England.

It is really a big con, the whole day itself can cost loads! For me the test cost £39 and it also cost another £41.00 for the use of the Instructor's car! So all in all £80.00 for the whole day, I do feel really sorry for people who pay this much and fail! I took my lessons with BSM, though they're good, they're damn expensive.

Andrew, have you considered putting your test in another town with a shorter waiting list? As I know several people who put in for Northwich rather than Warrington, as Northwich has a shorter waiting time. Though I recommend putting the Test in your own Town, at least then you know most of the routes and what have you.

nwtv2003 wrote:I took my lessons with BSM, though they're good, they're damn expensive.

BSM (and id imagine AA) are a con. use an instructor that has been recommended by a friend is my advice. BSM just live off their brand, where as local one-man-bands operations have to basically live off recommendations.