The Irish Driving Test...A License to Kill?
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Driving Test waiting times in Ireland is a hot topic right now for various reasons.Demographics play the major role here but lack of a serious and structured approach to Learning to Drive is also a signifciant factor. There is no mandatory tuition although it has been talked about for some time now.Other countries in Europe require a certain number of hours to be certified by an accredited Driving School before you are allowed to sit a Driving Test.This seems to work well and provides some good basic level skills to the Learner Driver which in many instances in Ireland are completely lacking.
In the last few days the Irish Transport Minister has received yet another set back to his ill conceived plans to outsource the handling of Driving Tests by a Private Company. Successive transport Ministers over the last number of years have had to grapple with many anomalies in the Driving scene in Ireland. Each one has thrown himself wholeheartedly into the fray and buckled down to the task of addressing his own favourite topic.
That’s all well and good but unfortunately the Democratic system of Government has a habit of throwing up Cabinet reshuffles every so often and occasionally a change of Political Party. All of this means that when change takes place, the agenda changes with it and little gets done or implemented in the way of new Driving Legislation.
The lengthy delays in getting a Driving Test appointment in Ireland have as much to do with the colossal numbers of new drivers entering the fray as it does with Governmental inactivity.
One in five of Ireland’s drivers are beginners, a total of 405,000 souls wandering around aimlessly, and far too many of them stay in the Learner Driver bracket for far too long due to the lack of mandatory tuition.
Most Countries in Europe have a well established routine for Learner Drivers who are not permitted to sit a Driving Test until they are ready .Who is to say when they are ready? Good question and a very easily answered one…the Driving School that teaches them!
In Ireland unfortunately at present we have no such established protocol with the result that the roads are a free for all and populated by tens of thousands of Learner Drivers who think that all they have to do is sit in the Driving seat and turn the Ignition on and all will be well!
Until there is mandatory tuition and a sensible system to regulate the numbers of beginner drivers applying for the Driving Test the waiting list will continue to rise inexorably. We are not saying for one moment that driving should be restricted to the privileged; more that there should be a recognised period of Driver Education and preparation and a stricter control of Drivers flaunting the basic laws of survival.
A free for all leads to the kind of catastrophic rise in accident statistics that we are seeing currently, which incidentally is being fuelled relentlessly by the large numbers of new Immigrants. As you might imagine these new arrivals are doing what they see others doing or getting away with, and in addition mostly come from countries with an even worse record of road fatalities than our own.
So it’s a problem spiralling out of control leading to untold personal and family misery and a huge drain on the local resources which are not equipped to deal with the carnage on such a level.
As we have said several times recently there will come a time when the killing has to stop and preventative action becomes the norm. Just when that will be is open to conjecture! Until then every learner driver has effectively been given an 007 attachment to their Provisional License.
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