Driving tests should be free if learners have to wait more than 10 weeks, TD suggests | BreakingNews.ie
A TD has suggested that the Road Safety Authority (RSA) should be financially penalised if they fail to meet a 10-week target for driving test wait times, similar to the National Car Test system.
Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore criticised the lack of accountability within the RSA as the driving test backlog reached record highs last month.
Speaking on RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland, Ms Whitmore further criticised the long waiting times for driving tests in Ireland, with the average wait being 27 weeks and some testing centres having waits as high as 43 weeks.
“I’m coming at this quite sceptically. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard ministers say we’d be getting down to the 10-week target. The unacceptably high waiting list for driving tests has been an issue for many years now, and really what I feel is that there is just really no accountability within the RSA for them to actually meet their 10- week target.
“We currently have 83,000 people who are waiting 27 weeks on average. Some testing centres it’s actually as high as 43 weeks. And it’s hugely impacting so many people and I think particularly young people who might need their driving test to get a new job or indeed those that need to travel to college because they can’t get accommodation and need to live at home.
“So this really impacts on so many people’s lives and it has done for a number of years now and we’ve heard promise after promise from the government that they were going to get on top of this and we really haven’t seen any moves. In fact since we last discussed in the Dáil in February we’ve seen an increase of a thousand people on the waiting list.
“Obviously if there are more testers you would hope that the numbers will come down. But there needs to be some level of financial accountability for the RSA to encourage them to actually meet their 10-week target.
“With the NCT test, if you don’t get your test within 28 days under their service level agreement with the Government that test should be provided for free, and I believe that actually it should be the same for the driving test – that if the RSA do not meet their 10-week target that actually that driving test should be provided for free. And I think if you saw that level of a financial incentive or financial accountability I think then we would really see movement.”
Ms Whitmore said measures such as opening driving test centres at weekends, along with overtime and strong contracts for testers, will encourage people into that industry.
A suggestion by Clare Fianna Fáil TD Cathal Crowe that learner drivers should be allowed to drive unaccompanied was “really dangerous”, she said.
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“The actual safety issues with that are incredible and when you look at the fatalities amongst unaccompanied learner drivers they’re very, very high – I think really those kind of suggestions should not be considered and what we need to see is people doing their jobs rather than coming out with these ridiculous workarounds.”
Earlier on Newstalk radio, Mr Crowe had called for some leeway under which learner drivers could drive without a full licence. In parts of rural Ireland “where there is no Luas, there’s no Dart, there is no significant transport network” people needed a car to get around. It was not always practical for them to have someone accompany them, he said.
There should be a mechanism whereby their driving was monitored and they could not exceed a certain speed.
“Maybe you could have some device that would regulate their speed, ensure that they’re not allowed to go over certain limits. The other thing is the insurance sector have been on this for years. Some insurance companies have a speed restrictor in the car or a way of monitoring driver behaviour. Maybe that would be the smart way rather than criminalising all of these young people who cannot get someone to travel with them.”
