No lesson slots at driving school? Try Bukit Batok centre at weekend but be prepared to pay more

SINGAPORE – Learner drivers who found it hard to get practical lesson slots at Bukit Batok Driving Centre (BBDC) now have more slots opened up for them, but these new peak-hour weekend slots will come at a price.

The new weekend lessons for Class 3 manual cars and Class 3A automatic cars are available on Saturdays and Sundays in two time blocks – from 5.10pm to 6.50pm and 7.20pm to 9pm – but are often snapped up quickly.

Learners can join a queue and book the earliest practical lesson slots that open up in these two windows for a $45 surcharge. BBDC said it levies the surcharge to compensate instructors for working extra hours.

Lesson slots in the two weekend time blocks are available on a limited basis, depending on the availability of instructors. Each slot is priced at $135.16 – about 57 per cent more than the price of an existing peak-hour slot. 

Demand for driving lessons remains strong despite fee increases at all three Singapore public driving centres earlier in 2026.

Between June 2024 and May 2025, about 44,520 learners took the practical Class 3 driving test, up from nearly 35,800 between July 2021 and June 2022 during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Extra slots at BBDC are aimed at helping ease long waiting times for learners who want to get their driving licence quickly, said a BBDC customer service officer.

Learners must join a waiting list before calling the BBDC hotline on Friday mornings to check for available slots. If they find an open slot, they can book it after paying for the lesson and the $45 surcharge.

The BBDC customer service officer said more than 100 learners are now on the wait list. About 15 to 20 slots become available every weekend and they are usually snapped up on a first-come, first-served basis.

Hakkeem Nasira, 23, who recently graduated from university, said she enrolled for Class 3A lessons at BBDC in July and found that the earliest practical lesson slot she could book was in February 2027.

She wants to get her licence before starting work in about six months, she added. She will consider paying a premium for the weekend slots if no earlier slot opens up, for instance, through a cancellation.

But SMU student Choo Ying Ern, 19, is not keen to pay more for Class 3A lessons at BBDC. She said: “When the prices increased at the beginning of the year, I was already thinking twice about getting my licence.”

Some learners try their hand at “camping” – which means repeatedly checking the booking portal for slots. Others turn to people who offer to give up their slots for a price.

One learner who asked not to be named told The Straits Times that she pays about $6 more than the original lesson price to buy a slot from sellers on messaging platform Discord.

The cost of the BBDC weekend peak slots is now similar to the price charged by private driving instructors. Private instructors, who often charge higher prices, are losing ground to the major driving centres, but the private route often does not have long wait times.

Full-time national serviceman Javier Gan, 20, who is taking Class 3A lessons with a private instructor, said booking a lesson slot is easier for him than it is for his friends who go to the major driving centres. “It was not a difficult decision to go private,” he said.

Private driving instructor Aman Aljunied, 70, said he got the most requests for classes in 2026 since he began giving private lessons in 2023. He cut his intake from more than 70 learners at the beginning of the year to about 30 to 35, so waiting times for classes are not too long.

Some private instructors, like John Tan, 71, are raising their prices. He hiked prices twice in the past year in response to competition from public centres, as well as rising car maintenance, certificate of entitlement and fuel prices.

ComfortDelGro Driving Centre in Ubi hired more instructors and expanded its car fleet by 10 per cent in 2025 to keep up with growing demand, but it said there are no plans now to add more lesson slots.