11 dead and counting...

MrPudding

HelterSkelter wrote:

I don't rate the driving test at all, all you have to do is act like a good driver for 20 mins and you pass. It is more a test of your acting ability than anything else!!
I think it would be much more useful to compare the number of years driving experience of drivers involved in accidents. Have never came across this info though.

I agree with you to a certain extent, in so far as the test is not great. The fact of the matter is it is all we have at the moment. There has to be a way of deciding who can drive and who can't.

The most obvious way to do this is to have a test. The fact of the matter is this, no matter how easy or irrelevent you or anyone else feel the test currently is around half of the people sitting it still manage to fail it.

These people cannot even act like a good driver, as you suggest, for 20 minutes yet we are happy to have them on our roads unsupervised? Madness.

Then we had the news this morning that the driver of that school bus that crashed a couple of weeks ago was on a provisional! Seriously it is a joke.

The unaccompanied learner rule should be enforced. TBH I don't really care if it inconvieniences people. There are plenty of things in my life that are an inconvienience but hey, that's life. Learner drivers are supposed to be accompanied for a reason. And don't give me the waiting list whine. If people are on proivisional licenses because of the length of time they are waiting for a test then how come there are more than twice as many provisional license holders than there are people waiting for a test?

By the way HelkterSkelter, this post / mini rant is not aimed at you in particular.
MrP

Noelie

Making people do their test every 4/5 years is impractical,
however there should be some kind of government cource which people have to pass in conjunction with the driving test., like the Hibernian Ignition course

Also people over 65 should have to sit the test again and then every 5 years after that. There's a lot of older people, my Dad and Grand Dad included, who's eye sight is going and may not be safe behind the wheel

HelterSkelter

MrPudding wrote:

By the way HelkterSkelter, this post / mini rant is not aimed at you in particular.
MrP

No probs, I do agree with a lot of what you say. I think they should sort out the driving test waiting list though before they kick provisional drivers off the road. It is not fair otherwise. It would cause a lot of hardship for people if you just took their car away from them.

HelterSkelter

Noelie wrote:

Making people do their test every 4/5 years is impractical,

No it's not. If they can make you NCT your car every 2 years they should be able to manage a 20 minute test for each driver every 5 years.

jackofalltrades

The unaccompanied learner rule should be enforced.

Totally agree, but it would be political suicide until the waiting list for driving tests is brought down to weeks instead of months.

One rule which I think they should bring in is, that on a provisional licence the only other passenger that should be allowed in your car is one fully licenced driver, should reduce the number of young people being killed in accidents.

I don't rate the driving test at all, all you have to do is act like a good driver for 20 mins and you pass.

Yeah but around 50% of drivers can't even act like good drivers for 20 minutes. High levels of enforcement would keep the ones that do pass in line.

Capt'n Midnight

jackofalltrades wrote:

One rule which I think they should bring in is, that on a provisional licence the only other passenger that should be allowed in your car is one fully licenced driver, should reduce the number of young people being killed in accidents.

Don't think that would work here. Even if you ignore the number of L drivers without L plates, wasn't there some statistics that 90% of motorbike pillion passengers claims came from L drivers who aren't legally allowed passengers ?

Enforcement of existing rules is needed first not more laws that will be ignored.

AFAIK across the boarder you need to have had a full license for three years before you can accompany a learner. Down here people who got their license in the 1979 amnesty and who may have never driven a car let alone passed a test can accompany learners.

Capt'n Midnight

Noelie wrote:

Making people do their test every 4/5 years is impractical,

With the number of driving testers and failure rates we have at the moment making people do it ONCE seems to be impractical. The only reason the waiting list is only the best part of a year long is that most provisional license holders are NOT on the waiting list.

http://www.irlgov.ie/debates-99/27apr99/sect3.htm

Mr. Molloy: wrote:

Significant additional resources are now being allocated to the driver testing service, which will shortly comprise 103 testers compared to 66 in 1998. Together with recent productivity agreements and Saturday working, this will increase the testing capacity of the service by over 90,000 tests to 202,000 driving tests annually.

http://talk-ireland.com/article.php?sid=2295

According to Department figures released to Deputy Shortall, there are a total of 410,602 unqualified drivers on our roads at the moment. These include:

*29,044 on their 5th or more provisional licence
*31,455 on their 4th provisional licence
*39,676 on their 3rd provisional licence
*100,780 on their 2nd provisional licence
*209,647 on their 1st provisional licence
...
“The single biggest contributing factor is the fact that the number of driving tests carried out over recent years has been dropping. 16,000 fewer driving tests were conducted in 2005 compared to 2004 (137,350 as opposed to 153,983).

Last year the number of driving tests were 2/3rd's of the numbers promised for 2000.
At the current rate it would take 3 years to test each unqualified driver once. The current fail rate is nearly 50% so that makes it more or less a SIX YEAR BACKLOG ON DRIVER TESTING and that's not taking into account that the 2/3rd's of provisional holders who aren't awaiting a test may well have a higher fail rate.

http://irish.typepad.com/irisheyes/2006/03/facts_learned_i.html

The number of driving tests administered in Ireland is declining year-on-year. In 2000, 109 driving testers conducted 162,696 tests. Four years later, 129 testers with productivity increases in their pockets could manage just 153,983. In 2005, the number of completed tests fell to 137,000. At this rate, the more full-time testers employed, the fewer the tests administered.

Year tests testers
1998 110,00 66
2000 162,696 109
2004 153,983 129
2005 137,000

BTW, still three people killed on our roads per tester employed - anyone know where I'd get similar data for other countries to see if any correlation ?

[edit]
Audit on driver testing - 6 years ago, the target was 1,847 tests per tester as part of a productivity deal. In 2004 actual was 1,193 tests per tester - just under 2/3's of the agreeded target. http://www.audgen.gov.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=493&&CatID=5&StartDate=1+January+2006