When to book a driving test? [Cork]

Gauge

Sorry if this doesn't warrant it's own thread, but it didn't seem fit to add to the waiting times thread.

I've been learning to drive since January, practising 30mins-1hour a day. Now the waiting time for the test here is 33 weeks according to drivingtest.ie, but a newspaper in January reported it to be 10 months.

So people have been telling me to book it NOW because 8-10 months time means I'll be driving over a year and should be able for it, however people (including my previous instructor) are telling me that I might get a cancellation or something, or that waiting times will suddenly decrease and it'll happen too soon for me to pass it. Then again, if I wait til I feel ready I could be waiting for months on end!

Any ideas what I should do? Obviously I don't want a provisional forever but I don't want to do the test too early! Is there anyone from Cork who can say how long they had to wait for theirs, or when they decided to book it?

Thanks for any help!

Irish Salfordia

Gauge wrote:

I've been learning to drive since January, practising 30mins-1hour a day. Now the waiting time for the test here is 33 weeks according to drivingtest.ie, but a newspaper in January reported it to be 10 months.

So people have been telling me to book it NOW because 8-10 months time means I'll be driving over a year and should be able for it, however people (including my previous instructor) are telling me that I might get a cancellation or something, or that waiting times will suddenly decrease and it'll happen too soon for me to pass it. Then again, if I wait til I feel ready I could be waiting for months on end!

Any ideas what I should do? Obviously I don't want a provisional forever but I don't want to do the test too early! Is there anyone from Cork who can say how long they had to wait for theirs, or when they decided to book it?

Thanks for any help!

Hi,

Waiting list times in all test centres are coming down because of the franchising out of some tests to the sgs group. The times shown on the official test website are always so long in arears to be outdated. You should begin to assume 5 - 7 months from date of a normal application. You will not be offered a short notice cancellation unless you apply for a cancellation. If/when you receive a test appointment you can always cancell it if it is not convenient as long as you have not already cancelled more than 2 tests previously

Mitch Connor

apply now - when you get your test date (which won't be for a few months anyway) just get some pretests (i did 9 hours of them), and you should be fine.

Stark

Irish_Salfrodia wrote:

Hi,

Waiting list times in all test centres are coming down because of the franchising out of some tests to the sgs group

No they're not. Especially not in Cork anyway where there are no tests being outsourced.

You should apply now.

Gauge wrote:

or that waiting times will suddenly decrease and it'll happen too soon for me to pass it.

Well yes, everyone in front of you in the queue could suddenly drop dead but that's not likely to happen. Like I said, there is no outsourcing going on in Cork, so the waiting times for the Cork centre are only going to get longer.

Mrs. MacGyver

Skibbereen isn't too bad. I was waiting 4 months but the narrow streets are hard to get used to.

Faith

Why is there no outsourcing in Cork?

I had an absolute bitch of a tester who failed me, and I'm terrified of getting her again. I was really hoping that they were outsourcing...

rain on

Mrs. MacGyver wrote:

Skibbereen isn't too bad. I was waiting 4 months but the narrow streets are hard to get used to.

I applied for my test in Skibbereen today. I've only been driving about a month, but my instructor said that as long as I planned on driving constantly for the next six months, I should be okay.
Most of my lessons consist of me going 'AAAAARRGGHHHHH'* and the instructor going 'look, I wouldn't ask you to put my car through that gap if there wasn't room'.


*this may be an exaggeration.

Gauge

Faith wrote:

Why is there no outsourcing in Cork?

I had an absolute bitch of a tester who failed me, and I'm terrified of getting her again. I was really hoping that they were outsourcing...

Haha, you're not the first person I've heard complaining about that tester!

Faith

Yeah, my driving instructor was furious that I got her. He said she's notorious for failing people!

Tony H

my wife got her test after asking for a cancellation after about 2 months
and she got that b***h of a female tester , gave her confusing instructions going around a roundabout and failed her , they're all not like her though some of them are nice enough and will put you at your ease before you set off

Gauge

I don't know anyone whose gotten that tester and passed. She has quite a reputation.