“I thought about changing my self -school, really, but as I had already approved the theoretical exam … when I asked in other places the waiting list was the same.” These words are from Elena, a student of an Aluche car to the south of Madrid. What he explains is the same as thousands of students live throughout Spain.
Elena is 19 years old and wanted to get the driving license “because a car gives you a lot of freedom. If there is public transport, I prefer public transport but it is true that the car gives you that freedom not to depend on the schedules of the bus or the subway.”
He was not in a hurry, luckily. He tells us that he approved the theoretical exam last March but had to stop the desire to get into the car to start the practices. “There was a waiting list that has come to August.” And, as we said, he clarifies that it doesn’t matter where you look.
“I had to wait and now,” he emphasizes.
Those who need yes or yes to work are not so lucky. “As an opponent, who in some cases ask traffic an extraordinary exam to be able to enter into the deadline,” they explain from Corella Autoescoles who will give us more details of what they are living in Valencia.
Because the situation is repeated in the big cities of Spain. This is just a case in Madrid but there are similar testimonies in Valencia, Barcelona or Bilbao. Self -schools stuck due to lack of teachers. But also struck self -schools because, they say, the DGT does not have enough employees to give way to the waiting list to present to the practical exam.
“The so -called waiting list,” they tell us from the DGT.
Permanently struck self -schools
It is a problem that has been repeating for years. Already in 2017DGT examiners were strike demanding job improvements. They said they were saturated and claimed more personal. Then, 100,000 applicants stayed on the road and Some self -schools raised the closure after some stops that were held more than half a year.
Now the DGT ensures that “the ratio of jobs is covered in 97% and is the group that has a higher replacement rate since every year approximately 50 examiners access.”
“Since 2017, 732 examiners have been incorporated. It is, with much difference, the collective with more incorporations within the DGT, ”they insist. Is it enough? Javier L. Tejedor, of Lara auto -schoolIt is resounding: “No.” He points out that the examiners “are obliged to take the holidays before February and that leaves months of very few examiners in staff. The months of December, January and February are very complicated. And also July.”
The same says David Corella, from Corella Autoescoles. “We have to take the student to exam when we see him prepared but quadling that we have to wait a month and a half to introduce ourselves. There you have to run out the practices.”
If everything were about rails, there would be not much problem. But everything is complicated when the student suspends (according to the DGT 46% of students do not exceed the first exam). “We have to put them on the waiting list of repeaters and there the deadlines go to two or three months because we have to continue taking people but there are few places. We have never had a waiting list like now,” they insist.
Both point to the same problem. “Almost all traffic leaders are saturated throughout Spain,” they explain from Lara Auto School. “In our case, as we have 65 centers in Madrid, the waiting list to do the practices once you approve the theoretician is from a month and a half but today I have answered an email from a student of another car that claims to have to wait five months.”
“An examiner does 12 car or motorcycle tests a day. It has 360 minutes to examine throughout the day but the number of tests are the same, regardless of the exam last five or twenty -eight minutes,” explains Javier L. Tejedor.
The perception that students and self -schools have is that the traffic jam is continuous but the DGT defends that this is not such and that, in fact, it is not uncommon for empty squares to remain. “The so -called waiting list is not a fact that corresponds to people who would be in real disposition to request the exam,” they explain.
David Corella says that in Alicante “they have the same examiners as us but they have a million less inhabitants. Come on, in Valencia we have few for the population we have.” And he points to a fact “We are in almost 19,000 students waiting. In three years we have increased more than 3,000 students.”
Traffic, meanwhile, defends itself by saying that these students are counted on the CAPA SYSTEM But they ensure that not all students who appear there are willing to take the exam. They classify these in three major categories:
- Those who have suspended the first test
- Those who are completing practical training but are not prepared to get the driving license
- Those who delay the exam to take it out in their city of origin or during its holiday period.
In Lara auto, they agree that this happens but they point out another reason: “Many students move to take the exam to do them in smaller headquarters taking advantage of the fact that they return to study but there are also those that come to Madrid to larger self -schools because they know we have more capacity to teach and there are more scheduled exams.”
They do not share this vision in the DGT. From traffic they emphasize that, in addition to the usual template, they have 15 examiners who rotate between traffic leaders to adapt to demand. A demand that has forced 6.58% more exams with open traffic in the first six months of 2025 as in the same period of 2026. However, they explain: “Remaking the months of December, January and July, many places to perform the exams have been deserted in the absence of students.”
In Corella Autoescoles show their almost total disagreement. “In Valencia, more examiners are being retired than they are entering. Or examiners enter that is requested an leave because they have a place elsewhere, computs as an examiner but they are not really working. At least, that is the case of two examiners in Valencia, “they say.
“Yes it is true that traffic is right that the thing is more complicated for a few months of the year but they should have places to replace an examiner in case you suffer from a decline. It cannot be that an examiner, who is in his right, gets bad and that day does not take the exams,” he emphasizes.
The debate, therefore, is served. Students have to wait for months to be able to perform exam practices. The self -schools believe that the lack of examiners is an enquisted problem. The DGT says it is merely seasonal. And a storm approaches along the way. In the first six months of 2025 there were 12% more theoretical tests than in 2024 only in the province of Valencia. Some tests that now have to be absorbed.
And a situation that, as they point out in Corella Autoescoles is harmful to the student. “Yeah, There are people who leave it. If you could go more often, it would have more approved than going from time to time. If I suspend I am three months old, so I get more nervous, I suspend again … It is a vicious circle and in the end there are people who leave it by frustration or because they are seeing that they are leaving a lot of money and do not advance, “says David Corella.
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