75 years of the driving test


In the early days of motoring, there were few rules or regulations. In 1893, France was the first country in the world to introduce a driving test, along with the first vehicle registration plates and parking restrictions.


The first car and driver licences were introduced in Britain in 1903, but testing was unknown here for another 30 years.


Miss Vera Hedges Butler was the first British woman to pass a driving test: as it was 1900, and drivers were not yet being tested in Britain, the intrepid Miss Hedges Butler decided to go all the way to Paris to take the French test.


By the early 1930s, motoring had become more popular and more affordable.


However, rules and regulations were scant and drivers received only basic instructions before being allowed on the roads. Consequently, accidents and fatalities began to reach worrying proportions.


In 1934, 7,343 people were killed on Britain’s roads, despite there being just 2.4 million vehicles on the road (1.5 million of which were cars) compared to more than 30 million vehicles in 2003.


Public concern was growing and drastic action was needed. Transport Minister, Oliver Stanley, pushed for the introduction of various road


4 Despatch Magazine www.dsa.gov.uk


safety measures, including formal testing for drivers.


In 1935, when Leslie Hore- Belisha, became the new Transport Minister, he introduced the driving test – first in March as a voluntary test. During the 1930s safety glass became mandatory for windscreens after terrible injuries had been caused by accidents in cars with ordinary glass. Seat belts did not appear until the 1950s but were not made compulsory in front seats until 1983.


Arm signals out of the window were withdrawn from the test in 1975 and more modern additions to the test have included a theory test in 1996, the hazard perception section of the theory test in 2002 and questions about vehicle safety and maintenance in September 2003.


Changes to the test and other safety initiatives, such as improvements to vehicles, have


resulted in a reduction in road deaths in Great Britain, which now has some of the best road safety records in the world. In 2008 there were 34 million cars on the road and 2,538 people were killed in road accidents – DSA is still passionately working towards further improvements in road safety.


When announcing the introduction of the driving test, Leslie Hore-Belisha said, “Driving is an art in which those who are engaged should, in the interest of their own and of the public’s safety; take the greatest pains to make them proficient.”


Decades later this still holds true and is summed up in DSA’s maxim, Safe Driving for Life.


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