A ROAD on the DVLA test route has become so clogged up with learners practising their manoeuvres that drivers are having to mount the pavement or swerve to avoid them.

Residents on Ambrook Road in Whitley say they are fed-up with learners queuing up in their road to practise their three-point turns and reversing around corners — and one man says it has become dangerous.

Michael Channon has lived within a stone’s throw of the Elgar Road DVLA examination centre for two years. But the 27-year-old accountant said a sudden influx of student drivers practising with instructors has resulted in a series of near misses — making the road a danger to residents.

He said: “It’s really bad and can be incredibly frustrating and dangerous.

“I know I live right next to the test centre but it’s an accident waiting to happen in all honesty.

“The hotspots in the area are literally the top and bottom of Ambrook Road and the cars will park right out on the road — sometimes nowhere near the kerb — and we’re all having to swerve around them and nearly hit other cars just to get around them.”

Mr Channon said drivers have become impatient at the sheer numbers of slow-moving learners and overtake them. On some occasions he has also seen more experienced drivers mount the pavement to squeeze past them.

He has even seen other drivers take junctions on the wrong side of the road to avoid having to wait for a learner to reverse around a corner. He said: “The cars are constantly clogging up the street and it’s just become unbearable.

“It’s not rare for us to be waiting for sometimes three or four minutes for them to do their manoeuvres and it makes us late because a lot of time they do it during rush hour.

“If it got to a point where accidents were happening I would consider moving out of the area because it just wouldn’t be a safe place to live.”

A Driving and Vehicle Standards Agency spokesman said: “We cannot legally control where examiners and instructors take students but we do take steps to minimise any disruption and if we get complaints from residents we can ask instructors to take an alternative route and use a different location instead.”