LDDA Motoring Amendment Passes
LDDA's amendment to Lib Dem policy passed this morning - highlighting the challenge facing many disabled people in getting the chance to learn to drive.
Our amendment to the party policy motion “Driving Forward: The Road to Access” presented at Party Conference in York - passed clearly. LDDA Chair Katharine Macy (pictured) proposed the amendment and it was summated by exec member Jonah Weisz.
It read:
After ix) (line 43) insert:
x) Less than 1 per cent of the approximately 39,500 Approved Driving Instructors (ADIs) in the UK have vehicles with adaptations for disabled learners, despite 25 per cent of the population being disabled.
xi) Disabled people are more likely to rely on driving, and often can only be independent through their vehicles.
After 9. (line 96), add:
10. More support for ADIs who wish to become instructors for disabled learners, including but not limited to support with adapting cars and their training.
The full motion as passed with the additional lines from LDDA in bold:
F5 Driving Forward: The Road to Access
1 Conference notes that:
2 i) Learning to drive is a vital life skill for many young people,
3 particularly in rural and semi-rural areas where public
4 transport is limited or unreliable; around one in five people in
5 England live in rural areas, where car dependency is
6 significantly higher and alternatives to driving are often
7 impractical.
8 ii) Learning to drive is also especially important for many disabled
9 people, for whom driving can provide greater independence
10 and access to work, education, healthcare and social
11 opportunities than public transport alone.
12 iii) There is a severe and persistent national backlog in practical
13 driving tests; as of 2024, average waiting times at many Driver
14 and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) test centres exceeded 20
15 weeks, with waits of six months or more in some areas,
16 compared with pre-pandemic averages of six to eight weeks.
17 iv) This backlog is driven by long-term examiner shortages,
18 insufficient test centre capacity, and limited system resilience
19 within the DVSA following the pandemic, despite sustained and
20 predictable demand.
21 v) Scarcity of test slots has enabled exploitation by third-party
22 bots, resellers, and touts, who reserve appointments in bulk
23 and resell them at inflated prices; learners have reported being
24 charged hundreds of pounds above the official test fee to
25 secure earlier slots.
26 vi) The cost of learning to drive has risen substantially - most
27 learners require 40-50 hours of professional instruction, with
28 average lesson prices exceeding 35 per hour, placing the cost
29 of lessons alone above 1,500 before tests or insurance.
30 vii) The cost of car insurance for young drivers remains
31 disproportionately high. Average annual premiums for drivers
32 aged 17-24 have exceeded 2,000, with affordability often
33 made conditional on the use of telematics or black box policies
34 that monitor driving behaviour and location with limited
35 transparency or choice.
36 viii) The DVSA practical driving test does not require demonstrated
37 experience of night-time driving, motorway driving, or adverse
38 weather conditions, despite these being common real-world
39 scenarios for new drivers.
40 ix) Taken together, these barriers restrict access to employment
41 and education, entrench geographic inequality, and
42 disproportionately disadvantage young people, disabled
43 people, and those without family financial support.
x) Less than 1 per cent of the approximately 39,500 Approved Driving Instructors (ADIs) in the UK have vehicles with adaptations for disabled learners, despite 25 per cent of the population being disabled.
xi) Disabled people are more likely to rely on driving, and often can only be independent through their vehicles.
44 Conference believes that:
45 a) Access to transport is a matter of social and economic justice,
46 and no one should be prevented from learning to drive
47 because of their income, disability or where they live.
48 b) Public transport must be improved and expanded, but driving
49 remains essential to the freedom, mobility and life chances of
50 many young people, particularly in rural and poorly connected
51 communities.
52 c) A fair market cannot function where artificial scarcity is
53 exploited through opaque systems, weak enforcement or
54 automated intermediaries that profit from public service
55 failure.
56 d) Privacy and personal autonomy should be respected, and
57 intrusive monitoring through telematics should not become a
58 de facto requirement for affordable insurance for young
59 drivers.
60 e) Improving access to high-quality driver education, fair testing
61 systems and transparent insurance practices can improve road
62 safety and opportunity without reliance on surveillance.
63 Conference calls for:
64 1. Urgent and sustained investment to expand DVSA testing
65 capacity, including recruiting and retaining additional
66 examiners, expanding test centres in underserved areas, and
67 building resilience to prevent future backlogs.
68 2. Targeted action to eliminate exploitation of driving test
69 bookings, including anti-bot protections, identity-linked
70 bookings, limits on automated reservations and enforcement
71 against third-party reselling.
72 3. A national bursary scheme, the Young Drivers Support Fund, to
73 subsidise driving lessons and test fees for low-income young
74 people and disabled learners.
75 4. A formal review and reform of car insurance practices for
76 under-25s, including improved pricing transparency and limits
77 on age-based premium multipliers.
78 5. Clear consumer rights and regulatory oversight for telematics-
79 based insurance, including transparency over data use,
80 proportionality of monitoring and genuine non-telematics
81 alternatives.
82 6. Modernisation of driver training and assessment to ensure
83 learners gain experience of real-world conditions, including
84 night driving, motorway driving and adverse weather.
85 7. Nationwide driver education programmes delivered through
86 schools, colleges, and community settings, covering road
87 safety, costs, insurance practices, consumer rights and driver
88 responsibilities.
89 8. Allocating 50 million per year for investment in driver
90 education, testing capacity and access support, recognising
91 that reducing backlogs and improving access will improve road
92 safety and opportunity.
93 9. The development of public-private partnerships with insurers,
94 driving schools, and local authorities to support discounted
95 lessons and fair access models, without compromising
96 consumer protection or privacy.
10. More support for ADIs who wish to become instructors for disabled learners, including but not limited to support with adapting cars and their training.