howbow88
Hacker
The waiting list is bad enough anyway, but it's a bit of a vicious circle...Tricky one....
As you're probably aware, as an instructor, you need to work when your clients want you to work..up to a point.
There's no sick pay or holiday pay, you need to keep your car up to date as the kids murder them, fuel ain't cheap either.
For me it was the waiting lists.....I just don't have the crystal ball to tell me how well someone is going to be driving in 6 months time.
Back in the day you could take someone on, get them to do their Theory, get them up to the standard, book a test for 4-6 weeks time.
And if they failed you could get another within 2 weeks.
Now it's 24 weeks wait..most get to the standard in that's months but some don't and its really hard to turn round and say..sorry you're not ready ..and you've got to rebook for 6 months time. And it'snot going to change unless they can employ 1000 new examiners - they couldn't even get 300 in 3 campaigns..plus, at 45 quid an hour, it's hard for some of them to afford more than a couple of hours a month...
If it was like the old days I'd still be doing it...now?
Wouldn't recommend it.
Plus the DVSA are a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes.....
Candidates are understandably getting impatient, so plenty of them book the test for 6 months time, but then they keep checking online for late notice cancellations. If they see one, they book it, often regardless of their ability, or even where the test centre is. This then means you'll often get candidates turning up who are not ready, so they fail, and then they're back in the queue.
It doesn't help that we have instructors bringing up candidates who aren't ready, but in fairness, the money is sometimes insane. A really nice instructor I know was recently paid £350 to pick up a candidate from a local train station, give her a 1 hour lesson, and then take her for her test. So in all, that was about 2 and a bit hours work, and during the test he just sat in our waiting room catching up on his admin. I can't begrudge him that!
So far at least, the DVSA have treated me well. There is a bit of a 'we've always done it that way' mentality unfortunately, and the union seem to get the blame for that, which isn't fair imo. As you say - more examiners are needed, but when you pay £14 an hour, you don't get many people queuing up to do it...
