By Emma Sword
Learner drivers should be told their instructors are trainees before they go out on the road with them, a motoring group has said.
The AA is calling for new rules to be introduced which require driving schools to tell learners that their instructor will be a trainee at the time they book their lessons.
It comes as figures show that some 27,000 learners have failed their driving tests after being taught by trainee instructors.
Many are unaware that their instructor is a trainee, the AA said, and officials no longer even try to track the impact on the drivers themselves, which could lead to poor driving skills once they are on the road, incidents and costly car insurance claims.
A request by the group for up-to-date pass rates for trainee instructors has been declined by the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) who said it would take too long to compile the data.
According to the AA, the most-recent Government research about pass rates involving trainee instructors was made in 1998-99 and showed a pass rate of 35% compared with a national pass rate of 46%.
Based on these 1998-99 figures, learners have had to fork out more than £1.7 million in additional driving test fees over the last 12 months, with millions more being spent on extra lessons.
The AA also pointed out that few learners realised that trainee instructors are allowed to give lessons unsupervised without having passed an exam on their ability to instruct.
It added that the number of trainee instructors had soared in recent years - more than doubling in two years to more than 7,600 by June 2010.
AA president Edmund King said: "It is a decade since officials found that thousands of learners were failing needlessly at the hands of instructors they didn't even know were trainees.
"The number of trainee instructors has since surged, yet public awareness remains low, and it is unclear if the authorities are taking this issue seriously.
"Most disturbingly, it seems officials no longer even try to track the impact on learner drivers. Now, more than ever, learners must be given an informed choice of instructors.
"Driving schools must be made to come clean when they use trainee instructors to teach young people to drive."
