The Government has announced it is deploying a platoon of driving examiners from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as part of new measures to try and address the massive backlog of driving tests. 

 

The 36 driving examiners from the MoD’s School of Transport, who usually only test service personnel, will be sent to the driving test centres with the highest demand near their home or base. The hope is they will conduct 6,500 additional tests over the next year. 

 

Secretary of State for Transport Heidi Alexander told the Transport Committee that the DVSA conducted a record 1.96 million driving tests last year, and delivered 42,000 more between June and September this year than over the same period in 2024.