Testing times for Irish drivers

By Shane Harrison
NI Dublin Correspondent

Unqualified learner drivers in Ireland could be put off the road

Tens of thousands of unqualified Irish drivers could be put off the road next week.

Up until now, Ireland was the only country in Europe where you could fail your test and drive off unaccompanied from the test centre.

Statistics from the Road Safety Authority show that more than 20,000 drivers are on at least their sixth provisional licence.

But from next Monday, all that will change.

Gardaí will have the power to prosecute all provisional licence holders found driving without a fully qualified driver in the car with them.

If a learner driver is caught driving unaccompanied, he/she could face fines of up to €2,000 or three months in prison.

Figures for the end of May suggest that there are nearly 336,000 unqualified drivers on Irish roads, that is about one in seven of all motorists.

Conor Faughnan of AA Roadwatch said it was "indefensibly absurd that Irish drivers have been ignoring for the past 25 years the need to get a full licence".

"We are the only country in Europe where you could fail your test and drive away from the test centre", he said.

Last year, Transport Minister Noel Dempsey said the situation was no longer acceptable but there was a public backlash when he announced his plan.

We are the only country in Europe where you could fail your test and drive away from the test centre Conor Faughnan AA Roadwatch

And he was forced to delay the implementation by eight months.

Until last year, there were major delays in getting a driving test. The average wait was 64 weeks.

But in the last 14 months matters have improved and the delay is down to 10 weeks.

Now, 12,000 tests are now carried out every week.

However, tens of thousands of provisional licence holders still haven't applied for their test.

Gay Byrne, the Irish broadcaster who chairs the Road Safety Authority, says:

"Nobody can possibly say they didn't know about the deadline and nobody can say they weren't warned - and nobody can possibly say they aren't ready for it."

If the clampdown is fully enforced from next week then hundreds of thousands of current drivers will either have to use public transport or drive with someone, who has had a full licence for at least two years.

Road safety campaigners say they expect gardaí to take a reasonable, intelligent and sympathetic approach to the problem of unqualified drivers.

But they all agree that from next week, for the sake of all road users, there has to be a new beginning.