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• The root problem is insufficient examiner capacity and overall test availability, not ADIs’ use of the system.

• Banning or severely limiting instructor management and swapping will make it harder to run intensive or highly structured courses and could damage business models that depend on coordinating tests.

• Learner‑only booking is expected to create more “test before ready” attempts, driving up fail rates and worsening waiting times.

• Extra admin will fall on learners (who may be less organised) while ADIs lose the ability to efficiently fill late‑available slots or reallocate cancellations between pupils.

• New geographical limits and reduced flexibility could particularly hurt learners in high‑demand urban areas who currently rely on moving to quieter centres.

Many trainers argue that learner‑only booking removes an essential part of how professional schools manage diaries, coordinate car and instructor availability, and rescue late‑notice cancellations.​
They warn this will hit intensive and high‑volume schools hardest, making it harder to keep cars and instructors productively booked and potentially undermining whole business models built around managing tests.​

Fill In The Questionnaire Too

I believe that more instructors will leave the business because of how difficult it will be to manage diary's. Pupils need consistency if you have pupil booking own test who won't be prepared to take advice from instructor this is going to disrupt a lot of people and more stressful. I know not all instructors book tests and agree with the result. However I operate on my own 50 minutes from closest test centre and I need to plan very well with pupils up to test.
DVSA are not taking every consideration on board!!

Instructor Responses

I say keep it that the companies that use this system for good use are allowed to use it and only able to swap a test they book in the same test center, not book a test in Inverness and then move it to Bedfordshire.
Also they should have taken the information I gave them about an X employee area manager selling test for £370 and can Guarantee a test in a week.I did an assessment on a driver who said he had a test from said person. Once he clicked on his link it opened up the dvsa website with no logins nothing. This guy had the booking system in his hand and had tests the following Monday at 7am 11:30 Tue All day Thursday and all day Friday so I think they need to look a lot closer than instructors selling tests.
ONLY SAYING

Limit the number of tests an instructor can book weekly but still allow us to book and swap tests
1000s of tests must have been saved by instructors swapping for their own pupils and through instructor groups

Instructors and schools should be able to book for example intensive courses need planning and so many pupils use these course and they work the best

I run intensive courses and offer test bookings and finding earlier tests manually, at least I did up to now...

John Owen

Simple keep the system but put limits in place. No instructor should need more than 60 tests a year and no more than 10 2 months worth booked at any one time. If you require more you must provide proof. Secondly check of any instructor has had more than 60 tests in each 12 month period for the last 3 years then that instructor should be questioned why and if it’s proven they were part of test harvesting then their green badge should be suspended. Also if instructors were booking tests away from there most used preferred area then again they should be questioned why.

Author
Keep The Online Booking System For Driving Instructors
John Owen I agree with your post, although we book a lot more than 60 tests a year as a business, I suppose one way that that the dvsa can monitor where that test is going is to make it compulsory that on the booking site an instructor is assigned to it. At the moment its you dont need to.

.Put a ban on the instructors/ schools that are abusing the booking system. If they are not doing anything illegal then we need a change in the law or more control of the system to ensure no unscrupulous use.

Stopping us from being able to use the OBS is another sign of the incompetence of the DVSA. At my local test centre, tests are lost weekly. We get 7 tests a week, sometimes 14, but no show are a big problem when we get so few tests. Also tests get cancelled last minute because no examiner is available.

Limit the number of tests that can be booked. Only let bookings for the test centres that the instructor uses

Test swapping between my own students has saved several test slots each year. If I am unable to do this in the future more tests will be lost , students and parents dig themselves in determined to try until it’s too late to cancel! They will lose money and the DSA will make more.

Why not issue a code for every driving instructor who uses the system to put in to the obs while logging on to prove they are genuine driving instructors using the system without the code you can’t log in then problem solved

2 things will help. More examiners (not that easy) and more test slots available to book (52 weeks available to work instead of 26).

Prosecute driving schools/instructors who have abused the system for their own personal gain

with a modern website for the OBS - repeated misuse should be able to be spotted and stopped.
the main issue is the outdated IT systems of the DVSA