We’re failing learners

Young adults have had a difficult enough time during lockdown, missing out on a proper university education despite borrowing for fees and forking out for accommodation. They are the most likely group to have lost their jobs because many work in the sectors hardest hit by the closures. All of this despite the fact they are the group least likely to be affected by Covid or end up in hospital with the disease.

It is incumbent on those who have placed them in this position to cut them some slack when the opportunity arises. Thousands in this cohort are learning to drive, or at least were before the coronavirus restrictions forced instructors to stop their courses and tests to be suspended. They will restart on April 22. As a result, the backlog for driving tests is huge, with more than one million learners potentially on the waiting list. At the same time, the number of approved instructors has fallen and since more than half fail the first time, the queue just gets longer.

This means an inordinate wait for young people seeking the freedom that being allowed to drive entails. But there is an added difficulty. Many of them have already passed the theory test but will have to retake it – and pay for it – if they do not get their full licence within two years. How is this fair? The Government responded to a petition signed by 77,000 people calling for a 12-month extension to the theory tests by insisting they would still expire after two years. Ministers said the limit was in place “for road safety reasons”. But the MOT test is a road safety requirement and yet car owners last year were given six months’ grace before obtaining a new certificate. The Government should show the same flexibility for learner drivers.