Being able to drive may mean being able to secure work that I couldn’t get to on public transport Meanwhile, the average cost for an experienced 45-year-old driver is £575. In contrast, an 18-year-old in Bristol would pay £1,439 a year for car insurance. According to NimbleFins, it would cost on average an alarming £2,399 for someone in my city to get insured. I live in Bradford, which is one of the most expensive areas for young people to get insured, alongside Liverpool and Manchester. Insurance companies look at your age as one of the big things that determine your risk, and young drivers represent more risk.Īccording to NimbleFins, the average premium for comprehensive insurance cover for an 18-year-old driver in 2020 was £1,871 a year. Premiums are colossal for younger drivers. You can pay for and book your practical driving test at gov.uk.īut after all of that, the biggest single cost is likely to be my insurance. The pass rate for the practical driving test was 45.7% in 2018-19, and if you don’t pass the first time, you’ll have to pay the full price again for another driving test. Costs vary depending on what day of the week you book in for: the DVSA charges £62 for tests on weekdays and £75 for tests on weekends. The practical driving test is the last step before getting your full driving licence. If you don’t pass your driving test in that time, you’ll have to pass the theory test again. If you do pass, the certificate lasts for two years. Unfortunately, if you fail your theory test you have to pay £23 to redo it. Statistics from the Department for Transport show a 68% success rate in 2008-2009, falling to 47.4% of the 1.34m taken in 2018-2019. Worryingly, pass rates for theory tests have fallen by a quarter in just over 10 years as the exam has been made harder. The things you need to know for the test can be learned from a book, a CD or via the Official DVSA Theory Test Kit app, which costs £4.99 to download on the Apple app store. The second step is the theory test, which costs £23 and can be booked and paid for online. There are a number of things to look at before a young driver can consider taking a car on the road. This costs £34 online at gov.uk and £43 by post. The first step in the process of learning to drive is applying for a provisional licence. Lessons are only part of the cost I need to cover if I want to get on the road. Other critics point out that if you fail your driving test first time round you may have to wait several weeks before another slot becomes available – by which time you may have forgotten much of what you learned in the first place. Taking your driving lessons over a longer period, with a more structured approach and a clear lesson plan, will help you learn all the skills necessary for life on the road.” However, on its website the AA advises against intensive driving courses: “Attempting to cram everything in at once isn’t necessarily an effective way to learn. So an intensive driving course could work out cheaper for me. My local driving school charges £860 for 40 hours of intensive lessons spread over two weeks, which works out to be £21.50 an hour, £6.50 less than a normal standard lesson. A week-long course can cost in the region of £1,000, while a two-week course could be double that. According to the RAC, a one-day course is likely to cost about £200 but this is only suitable for someone who requires a few hours’ practice before a test, not a learner. But this could simply mean that you’ll be guaranteed a refund if you don’t pass, or more lessons with them until you pass. These courses are typically one or two weeks long.Ī lot of intensive driving courses are marketed as a guaranteed pass. For 47 hours’ lessons I would pay £1,316.Īnother option that people take to pass their driving test is intensive lessons. The closest company to me charges £28 an hour, while another local firm charges £29 an hour or £28 an hour if you are a student, which I am. I live in Bradford, and according to NimbleFins, the average cost in the region is £26. The cost of lessons varies because driving instructors are free to charge whatever they wish. Qais Hussain, 17, has weighed up the costs of learning to drive against the benefits.
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