DSA Chief Executive Gary Austin gives us the latest from the Driving Standards Agency, including some exciting news for Pass Plus and information on a new consultation document on test booking

A Sporting Chance

By the time you read this I expect the Greeks will have finished celebrating their European victory and football fever will have returned to its normal level of support. But there is good news on the way. The Pass Plus success has inspired talks between us and Proactive Sports Management to enter into a road safety scheme involving the Pass Plus course and football club youth academies. Proactive were responsible for putting Wayne Rooney through Pass Plus last year. The idea is to create safer drivers among the future talent of professional football clubs, helping them to protect their long term assets.

We hope that through this scheme, we will achieve more awareness and take up of the Pass Plus scheme throughout the next season. Hopefully we will have more budding 'Wayne Rooney' type teenagers waiting in the wings to promote a very worthwhile driving course.

The Pass Plus scheme reached another a milestone recently when take-up of the modules for new drivers reached 20%. The scheme has continued to grow year on year and we are delighted that young people are recognising its value. We issued more certificates in the first 2 months of this year, than in whole of 1998/99. Thanks for your help in promoting the scheme. Please keep it up.

Test Booking

Following on with more good news, we have reviewed arrangements for booking and attending driving tests and have published our proposals in a Consultation Paper Modernising the Arrangements for Taking Driving Tests. Where appropriate, we propose to introduce similar changes to the tests taken by those waiting to qualify as an Approved Driving Instructor or to join other non-statutory registration schemes operated by the DSA for other types of driving instructor. The proposals include:

• Introducing a trainer booking facility for instructors to reserve appointments for car theory tests
• Reducing the minimum notice from ten days to three days for cancellations of practical tests or re-arrangements without loss of fee (counting Saturday as a working day)
• Reducing to one clear working day the minimum notification period for supplying candidate and vehicle details for tests within the trainer booking facility
• Counting Saturday as a working day for the purposes of candidates re-take failed theory and practical tests
• Simplifying ID requirements at tests
• Improving security arrangements for people acting as translators at theory tests.

Our consultation paper explains all the proposals in detail and can be obtained from our Policy Branch or from our website at: www.dsa.gov.uk. We would welcome your views on our proposals by 3 September.

Multi-purpose Test Centres

We have also announced the areas where we will be looking for nearly 60 possible sites for our new multi-purpose test centres, which will be opening by 2008. The centres will be able to safely conduct the new motorcycle manoeuvres off-road before the bikers go onto public roads. If a motorcyclist is dangerously incompetent at this stage of the test, he or she will not be allowed to continue on to the public roads.

England's new footballing boy wonder and Pass Plus celebrity Wayne Rooney

We are looking for relatively flat areas of two to two and a half acres not too far from good road systems, as we need to get both car test candidates and motorcyclists onto public roads as soon as possible once they leave the centres. The list of possible areas is available in driving test centres and also on the website. If you know of a suitable site in one of the locations listed, please contact national estates manager Steve Evans on steve.evans@dsa.gsi.gov.uk