Over 300 driving tests planned in Lleida

Driving tests are the bottleneck here — not theory exams, not paperwork, but the practical slot where a real examiner has to sit in the car. In Lleida, that bottleneck got bad enough that thousands of people were left waiting to finish their licence process. Now Spain’s traffic authority, the DGT, is trying a very direct fix: pack in extra practical exams on Saturday, May 16, and bring in roaming examiners to help clear the queue. ### What actually changed? The immediate news is an extraordinary exam session in Lleida next Saturday, May 16, focused on class B practical tests — the standard car licence. Local officials and the provincial traffic office reviewed the plan again this week, and the latest count is now more than 300 candidates for that single Saturday call-up. That is a lot for one day, which is the point. (segre.com) ### Why Lleida? Because Lleida became one of the clearest examples of the backlog problem. Local reporting and statements tied to the rollout put the queue at around 5,000 candidates waiting for a practical exam. Some reports described waits of roughly four months. For a learner driver, that is not just annoying — it can mean paying for more practice classes, reshuffling work or study, and watching earlier training go stale while you wait for a seat in the system. (segre.com) ### Why is the practical test the hard part? Because practical exams do not scale easily. A theory test can be scheduled in batches. A road test needs a car, an instructor, a route, and an examiner physically present for each candidate. If examiner staffing falls behind demand, the queue grows fast — basically like an airport security lane where every checkpoint suddenly needs twice as long and there are no extra staff to open new lines. (apd.cat) That is why the DGT’s fix is so staffing-heavy. ### Who are the extra examiners? They are itinerant examiners — temporary DGT staff reassigned to the province as part of a national shock plan. Lleida and Navarra were identified as the first territories where this reinforcement would be used in May. The idea is simple: move examiner capacity to the places where the queue is worst instead of waiting for the normal staffing pipeline to catch up. (sede.dgt.gob.es) ### Why a Saturday session? Because Saturday creates capacity without displacing the regular weekday calendar. Turns out that matters a lot when the weekday schedule is already full. Reports on the plan said practical class B exams would be authorized on Saturdays starting in the second half of May, and Lleida’s May 16 session is the first visible test of that approach. (segre.com) ### Will one Saturday solve it? No — not by itself. Three hundred-plus tests can dent a queue, but they do not erase a backlog measured in the thousands. The real significance is that Lleida is being used as a pilot for a broader operating model: more temporary examiners, more sessions, and weekend testing where needed. If that combination works, the DGT has a template it can repeat. (apd.cat) ### What does this mean for learners and driving schools? In the short term, it means some students get a real date instead of an indefinite wait. For driving schools, it means they can move more pupils through the system and stop carrying such a large pool of exam-ready candidates. But the catch is that this only feels like relief if the extra capacity keeps showing up after the pilot day. (segre.com) ### Bottom line? Lleida’s Saturday driving-test push is a backlog story, not a bureaucracy story. The DGT is admitting the queue got too long and is testing a practical fix — more examiners, more slots, one concentrated weekend burst. If it works, the lesson is obvious: the shortage was never demand for licences. It was examiner capacity. (segre.com) (lamanyana.cat)