London, UK: An uplift in driving testing capacity is “making inroads” into the driver shortage crisis, with another 15,000 drivers coming into the industry, according to the Road Haulage Association.
Duncan Buchanan, policy director at the RHA, told the Commons Transport road freight inquiry session on Wednesday that the 100,000 driver shortage had fallen by about 15,000 over six months as a result of testing speeding up.
Elizabeth de Jong, policy director of Logistics UK, said that there were some “green shoots” when it came to the driver shortage.
She said that new figures showed that applications for provisional licences were up by around 300% while there had been a 25% rise in vocational renewal applications for HGV driving licences.
This, she said, was “hope for the future”.
In September this year the government made changes to the HGV driver testing process and increased testing capacity by a third.
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency made moves to streamline the testing process and launched a recruitment drive to hire more examiners.
