Official Statistics

Driving test, theory test and instructor statistics, January to March 2012

The number of theory tests and driving tests taken between January 2012 to March 2012, pass rates, and the number of instructors.

From:
Department for Transport and Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency
Published
28 June 2012

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

Documents

Driver and rider tests and instructor statistics: 2011/12

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Driver and rider tests and instructor statistics: 2011/12 and XLS/CSV tables

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Details

This publication presents information on the number and pass rates of driving and riding tests conducted in Great Britain to 31st March 2012 (covering the whole of the 2011/12 financial year).

The statistics are derived from data held by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), which administers the driving test and training schemes in Great Britain.

A supplementary bulletin will be released in July. This will contain more detailed tables providing breakdowns of test passes by age of candidate and number of test attempts.

Key points

  • A total of 427,491 tests were conducted across all practical test categories (excluding ADI tests) between January and March 2012 (Q4 2011/12). This represents an overall decrease of 9.9 per cent in comparison with the same quarter in 2010/11.
  • In total, around 1.74 million practical driving / riding tests (excluding ADI tests) were conducted during 2011/12, down by 1.3 per cent from the 1.77 million tests conducted during 2010/11. However, the 2011/12 total was higher than the 2009/10 total of 1.68 million.
  • The practical car test pass rate has increased slightly from 44 per cent in 2007/08 to almost 47 per cent in 2011/12.
  • It is likely that the prevailing economic situation has led to fewer people undertaking commercial vehicle tests. The number of large goods vehicle tests fell from 70,766 in 2007/08 to 46,549 in 2011/12. The corresponding figures for passenger carrying vehicles were 10,331 in 2007/08 and 8,456 in 2011/12.
  • At the end of 2011/12, there were 46,569 approved driving instructors on the Register. Of these, over 99 per cent scored a grade four or better at their last check test.

Technical information

Information on Driver and Rider Test and Instructor statistics, including the pre-release access list, and related technical documentation can be found here.

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Published 28 June 2012

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