AA president Edmund King has argued that motorists who pass an automatic driving test should be allowed to drive a manual car after taking a one-hour conversion session, saying it “doesn’t make sense” to make them wait months for another test.
Under current rules, drivers who pass their test in an automatic car are restricted to automatics. If they later need to drive a manual vehicle – for work, to hire a car, or to borrow a friend or relative’s car – they must first pass a separate test in a manual car.
Record waits for manual driving tests
DVSA figures show the average waiting time to book a driving test in May was almost 22 weeks, compared with about five weeks in February 2020 before the coronavirus pandemic. Nationwide lockdowns are understood to be the main driver of the backlog, with millions of learner drivers and instructors unable to have lessons in person.
The share of learners taking automatic tests in Britain is also at a record high. In the last financial year, 29.4% of all tests conducted were in an automatic car, up from around 4% in 2007/08. Electric cars, which do not have a conventional multi-speed gearbox, have surged in popularity and are a factor in the rise. With an automatic, gears change based on speed without the driver engaging the clutch and shifting gears, making automatics generally easier to drive – though they can be more expensive.
“More pragmatic” than retesting
Speaking to the Press Association, Mr King said many new drivers go automatic because they want to “ditch the clutch, gear stick and difficult hill starts”. “Most drivers of automatic cars quickly develop good road skills, so it doesn’t make sense to force them to spend months overcoming the driving test backlog just to borrow a manual car,” he told the news agency.
“What we need is the Government to approve a conversion lesson provided by driving schools so that those that pass their test in an automatic can also drive manual vehicles legally,” he argued. “Such a one-hour conversion course would help those who may occasionally need to drive a manual car do so legally.”
Mr King believes the change would be “more pragmatic” than retesting people in a manual vehicle “when the DVSA is struggling to get rid of the current test backlog”.
Government response
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “For the safety of all road users, anyone wishing to drive a manual car must pass a manual driving test, and we have no plans to change this.”
The DVSA reports it has taken steps to help reduce the backlog, including recruiting more examiners, training them faster, using military examiners, and reforming the booking process to tackle misuse.
