AA urges one‑hour conversion lesson for automatic licence holders

Motorists who pass automatic driving tests should be allowed to drive manual vehicles after completing a one-hour conversion session, according to the AA.

Edmund King, president of the motoring services company, argued that it does not make sense for motorists to wait months for a manual driving test slot when most quickly develop good road skills. Under current rules, drivers who pass their test in an automatic car are restricted to driving automatics. Anyone wishing to switch to a manual must pass a further test in a manual vehicle.

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The proposal comes as the national driving-test system faces severe strain. Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency figures show the average waiting time to book a practical test reached nearly 22 weeks in May, specifically standing at 21.8 weeks. This is a notable increase from about five weeks in February 2020 before the pandemic, and is up from 18.1 weeks in July 2024.

Waiting times have increased by nearly a month since Labour came to power, despite government pledges to slash delays. Furthermore, the number of test centres hitting the maximum possible waiting time of 24 weeks has nearly trebled since Labour took office two years ago. The Government blamed the problem on the substantial backlog built up during the pandemic, which was exploited by third-party touts using bots to book tests and resell them at a premium.

Measures taken to tackle the backlog of driving tests include recruiting more examiners and training them faster, using military examiners and reforming the booking process to combat misuse.

At the same time, demand for automatic licences is surging. DVSA data show 29.4 per cent of all tests conducted in the last financial year were in an automatic car, up from about 4 per cent in 2007-08. Electric cars, which have surged in popularity in recent years, do not have a conventional gearbox, meaning people who choose to learn in them take automatic tests.

"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."

Mr King said many new drivers go automatic as they want to "ditch the clutch, gear stick and difficult hill starts". 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.

A Department for Transport spokesman 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."

Separate concerns have also been raised regarding untracked foreign licence holders on British roads. Any foreign national who moves to Britain is allowed to drive for up to a year using a licence issued by their home nation. After that, they must pass a UK driving test. However, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) confirmed it kept no record, register or even an estimate of how many such foreign drivers were using this exemption, raising fears that thousands may be ignoring the law with impunity.

Around 75 per cent of British citizens aged 17 and over have a driving licence. Last year, a total of 171,000 migrants settled in Britain, according to the Office for National Statistics, while in the year before that figure stood at 331,000.