Updated again: A further DVSA email in mid-November ‘clarified’ the restart date. Another update today (see the end of this article) clarified it back to where it was the first time. I can’t be arsed to rewrite the whole article, so let’s leave it as a testament to how well the COVID pandemic is being managed.
DVSA has just sent out an email, which I suspect is intended to clarify things for those in this industry who find things more difficult to understand than most. I can’t see any other reason for it, since there’s nothing new in it.
In summary, it says:
The Government has announced new national restrictions will be in place in England from Thursday 5 November until Wednesday 2 December (inclusive) to help stop the spread of coronavirus.
Driving lessons in England
The Government has announced that during these dates, driving lessons should not take place in England.
What this means for driving tests
Further to the announcement from the Government, all driving tests in England will be suspended from Thursday 5 November and restart on
Wednesday 2 DecemberThursday 3 December.
Critical workers tests and lessons
Given the short period of time the new restrictions will be in place, we will not be offering a critical worker priority service. We will keep this under review.
Waiting rooms in England
During the national restrictions in England we will also be pausing our plans to open up other waiting rooms in England until after 2 December.
There’s more words in the email, and a bit more information, so read the full message in the link at the start of this article. But this is the crux of it here. The strikethrough is the ‘clarification’ in the first update email.
Now let’s see what social media manages to pick out of this one to argue with. My money will be on that last one.
Update 1 December 2020: OK, I give up on this one. Another email has come through and apparently lessons CAN start again from 2nd December, unless you’re in Tier 3, where it is still the 3rd. Unlike most ADIs, I’m not blaming DVSA for this confusion. They originally said 2nd December, but the government ‘clarified’ it and it became 3rd December. Then we got the ‘tiers’ just to ‘clarify the situation even more’. Now we’re back to the 2nd. Or the 3rd.
It doesn’t affect me, anyway. I’m still holding out for either/both of a) the vaccine or b) infection rates similar to what we had during summer. With infections as they are right now, going out into the thick of it is only going to have one result – likely to end in another lockdown.