A new law has been rushed through to close a loophole that allowed wealthy motorists to pay as much as £726 to jump the queue for driving tests. The crackdown comes after sources confirmed that one individual, Robert, handed over the sum to a third-party booking service to secure an earlier slot. The practice, known as 'fast-track cheats', involved exploiting a system designed to offer priority bookings for genuine cases such as military personnel or those with urgent employment needs.
But investigators found middlemen were charging up to ten times the standard test fee to reserve cancellations or late availability. The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has now introduced legislation making it a criminal offence to sell or advertise test slots for profit. Offenders face fines and potential imprisonment.
'This was a racket plain and simple,' said a DVSA insider. 'Working families were left waiting months while the well-connected jumped the line.' The law, which came into effect yesterday, also targets the use of automated bots that snap up slots as soon as they appear.
Critics argue the government should have acted sooner, given that waiting times for practical tests have soared to over 20 weeks in some areas. Meanwhile, the man at the centre of the scandal, Robert, has not been publicly named. But documents uncovered by this newsroom show he paid the fee through a company registered in the name of a shell entity.
The trail leads offshore. The new law is a step, but the question remains: who else has been buying their way to the front of the queue?
