The time students are waiting for a driving test is ridiculous says Sunderland and South Tyneside instructor
Driving instructors in Sunderland and South Tyneside say their students are having to wait a “ridiculous” amount of time before they can sit their tests.
Top Gun driving school instructor Vikki Holt, who was speaking on behalf of the Sunderland and South Tyneside Driving Instructors Association, said: “The DVSA are supposed to be getting test waiting times down to seven weeks, but I logged in this morning and the next available batch of tests are not for 24 weeks.
“Students across the country are logging in at 6am in the morning and finding there are 30,000 people looking to book tests.
“It’s a ridiculous situation as students either have to book tests in advance and hope they are ready on time or if they wait until they are ready they then face the cost of months of additional lessons to keep their skills up as they wait for a test.”
Vikki feels the situation has been exacerbated by the closure of South Tyneside Driving Test Centre.
The centre was closed in 2022, a situation which Vikki says has now resulted in many of the instructors and students who would previously be examined in South Tyneside now training and applying to sit their driving tests in Sunderland.
She said: “There were five or six examiners based at the South Tyneside Centre and since it closed you now have around double to number of instructors and learners in Sunderland using the roads and looking to book tests.”
Vikki says the increased number of learner drivers on Sunderland’s roads has led to conflict with local residents including be spat at and one instructor she knows being chased by a resident with a golf club.
Vikki has long been campaigning for the reopening of the South Tyneside Test Centre and has set up an online petition which has over 1,600 signatures in support.
She said: “The current test backlog and waiting time is at an unprecedented high.
“The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) are recruiting more driving examiners to tackle this current crisis and the re-opening of South Tyneside Driving Test Centre would allow DVSA to increase this even further.
“The facility is still owned by DVSA and it would make sound economic sense to utilise this Government asset, which is currently being allowed to become derelict.
“Reopening the test centre would increase the testing capacity across Sunderland and South Tyneside, potentially halving the load and easing the backlog.”
We contacted the DVSA to get a response to Vikki’s concerns.
A spokesperson said: “The DVSA’s goal is to make booking a driving test easier and fairer for learner drivers, and we’re really grateful to everyone who has responded to our recent consultation on improving driving test booking rules for learners.
“We’re pleased to see that the measures we recently announced have increased the number of tests available in July 2025.
“The improved pass rate also suggests more learners are waiting until they are ready to pass, helping them begin a lifetime of safe driving earlier and reducing the need to rebook another test.”
The DVSA also highlighted that the Jarrow based test centre is six miles away from Sunderland and say that no driving test capacity was lost by the closure.
Vikki said that the association’s driving instructors use the roads around the Sunderland test centre to “familiarise” their students with the area in which they will be examined.
However the DVSA feel learner drivers should be able to “drive safely on all types of roads” and there is “therefore no need for learners to practice driving near a test centre”.
Figures provided by the DVSA shows the current average wait time for a test in England is 22.6 weeks. Although the DVSA did clarify that the average waiting time is the number of weeks before 10% of tests are available to book.
They also highlighted that the current pass rate in Sunderland is higher than the national average.