The new learner driver regulation seems to have rid the road of those dreaded lone learner drivers, or has it?

On the face of it, it appears that very few learner drivers are venturing out onto the road, but one cannot help think that the vast majority of these drivers have discarded their L plates out of necessity, rather than a real want to break the law. Driving along the Stillorgan Road last Saturday evening I could not help but think that the driver in front was a learner driver, you know what I mean, crawling along the road watching every car that passed, in case the next car suddenly came alight with blue flashing lights. The driver stood out like a sore thumb, slowing down so that every car behind, even those half a kilometre down the road could pass in front thereby leaving the road ahead like Allied Irish Banks on a Sunday, empty. One girl told me “Since I took the L plates off the car the Gardai don’t bother stopping me. When I had my L plates on the car, I was stopped more times than I could count”. It appears that the whole of the learner driver fraternity has decided to go underground as the only method of staying on the road until they pass their driving tests. But this has also caused a greater road safety problem, as other road users are faced with learner drivers driving in a manner that enhances the likelihood of either road rage or an accident by drivers who do not see the car in front as a vehicle driven by a learner driver, therefore the courtesy once shown to that driver is lost in the chaos of getting from A to B as quickly as possible.

Individuals have invested considerable amounts of their hard earned cash in being able to get on the road, some for the privilege of just having a car as a replacement for public transport, while very many others purchased motor vehicles for reasons purely associated with the benefits of the Celtic Tiger or the nictitated migration of people beyond the outer suburbs of Dublin where commuting by public transport was not a viable option. Let’s be honest about this, having to commute by public transport from the suburbs on the south-side of the city, and into the city in order to get another bus to an industrial estate on the north-side of the city, day in and day out, is a task most people do not relish. Anyway, if everybody decided to leave their cars at home and use public transport, the demand on the public transport network would be so over loaded as to make the system crumble under the pressure of demand. Really, what we have is a public transport system that over decades, has been continuously neglected by politicians from all political parties, who paid lip service to the problem by throwing crumbs of financial investment combined with unwelcomed political interference at a system that has far reaching social, environmental and financial advantages for the state. The RSA’s driving instructor initiative pushed learner drivers (government turned a blind eye because it lined the coffers of the Department of Finance and the business community) off the road before all the proper infrastructure was in place in order to cope with the demand for driving tests, and more importantly, fully qualified driving instructors in adequate numbers, who could meet learner drivers demands for professional driving instruction. The governments put the cart before the horse, spent billions of Euro on road infrastructure and then told us we need to reduce our carbon footprint by leaving our cars at home and using a fully functional public transport system that in reality only existed on paper. Dublin Bus hasn’t expanded its fleet, it has just replace old for new, Iarnrod Eireann has ungraded its fleet, added extra carriages but has not been able to meet the growing demand across its entire network, for a public transport service that doesn’t involve packing people in like sardines during peak operating times. But don’t blame Dublin Bus or Iarnrod Eireann for their shortcomings in not being able to cope with the needs of the public for a fully functional and operational public transport service, successive governments have hindered the stifled progressive development proposals and initiatives by the state agency CIE, by reducing grant aid or making grant aid conditional on the private sector having a particular slice of a cake it sees as sweet to its own commercial needs. Privatisation means profit before people, therefore the private sector cannot provide a public transport service that spans the needs of all social classes in our society.

Very many people now live far beyond the boundaries of Dublin and rely on an asset that was handed to them by a government promoting a Celtic Tiger: the use of a motor vehicle in order to commute to work from the far regions of the country. The government turned a blind eye to provisional driving licence holders, as insurance companies raked in vast profits from learner drivers they blatantly knew were not qualified or competent enough to drive on our roads. Because of the huge profits generated from the issuing of insurance cover, road tax, fuel duty and VAT, government, insurance companies and local authorities collectively contributed to the carnage we see on our roads today, by turning a blind eye for the sake of financial gain. The difference now is that the Celtic Tiger days are over and the same authorities and businesses are now preaching to us all that WE AS DRIVERS must now pay for the incompetence and blatant mismanagement they themselves sat on when they encouraged us all to invest our money in private transportation. Hibernian now has a driving school that makes money from customers it once encouraged to take out motor insurance without having any of the necessary requirements in order to drive responsibly and safely on our roads. Motorist are being lectured by the same people (ministers) who turned a blind eye to road safety (despite protest) and issued full driving licences to anybody who held a provisional driving licence, as insurance companies clambered to offer five and six thousand Euro insurance premiums to drivers with high performance vehicles who had little or no driving experience and who held provisional driving licences, talking about the pot calling the kettle black arse.

The provisional driving licence debacle had to end, we all knew this, and we all accepted this. But what we now have is a system where people who genuinely need to use their cars in order to work and pay their bills are being forced through no fault of their own to take their L plates off their vehicles in order to draw less attention to their presence on the road. A better system that allowed learner drivers pass their driving test while at the same time took into account the sudden problems that were generated by the political

incompetence of successive governments in not planning for the eventuality of a country where car ownership would jump from just over 700,000 vehicles prior to the Tiger to over 2.5 million today. People were handed licences, car insurance and road tax, no question asked and no need to worry, that was until the tiger collapsed under its own weight and government required other ways of securing taxes while at the same time reduce the balance of payments in order to stop the economy from going into meltdown.

Asking a person in Mullingar (or anywhere for that matter) to leave their car in the driveway for twelve weeks until they receive an appointment for a driving test makes no financial sense to anybody who requires the use of a car in order to commute back and forward to Dublin. Unlike the regulations in the United Kingdom where learner drivers (the law is the law) from the very start, have come to accept and comply with a law that they can not drive on a public road unless they are accompanied by a fully qualified driver, here in Ireland authorities promoted or ignored those who drove on provisional licences, therefore we require a resolution to a problem that is not of our own making but of those in authority who used the situation for financial gain or other. Similar to a militant jihad and the beheading of innocent people, the RSA and the Department of Transport beheaded in one foul swipe and without trial, all those it seen as alien to their newly found standards. We are not like the United Kingdom, our authorities in the recent past, turned a blind eye and ignored widespread objections and concerns by the media and various motoring organisations to the blatant willy-nilly attitude of allegedly professional political representatives and their political advisors at their incomprehensible attitudes towards the problems of learner drivers, provisional driving licence holders and road safety in general. Thirty years ago people spoke about the sham that was the provisional licence joke. The idea that on a first provisional licence you must be accompanied by a qualified driver but on the second you can drive on your own, only to find on your third and subsequent licence you were back to scratch, was a stupid, ridiculous system that drew not a whimper of attention from politician who walked the corridors of Leinster House over many decades.

There is a clammer by learner drivers for driving tests, many will pass on their first test but very many will fail and resort to removing their L plates in fear of being stopped by the Gardai for driving unaccompanied. There is a distinct absence of L plates on our roads, which seems to indicate that either learner drivers are abiding by the law (which I very much doubt) or are being forced to hide their presence for fear of being hauled over by the Gardai. Gaybo may be able to hire a taxi to bring him to a garden party in the back end of County Cavan and then bring him back home again to his hall door after everybody has bowed and showered him with greatness, but Joe and Mary Bloggs living in the arse hole of Cavan, who struggle to pay a mortgage, educate their children and require their cars in order to commute back and forwards from work, so they can keep the roof over their heads while at the same time are crucified by state and local authority charges and taxes, do not need yet another Gaybo initiative that ignores or takes into account their needs as ordinary everyday people.

Why is it here in Ireland we seem to be unable to do things using our own initiative, things that work from the very start? We mimic everything from TV quiz shows (and make bad efforts) to regulations that work in other jurisdictions but are totally unsuitable for various reasons in our own jurisdiction. We place a stainless steel snooker Q in the middle of O’Connell Street and nobody has the balls to say it’s a piece of shit that over time will eventually be pulled down. Nelson’s pillar was a functional if unwelcomed symbol in the middle of the street. People paid to climb its stairs and gaze out over the city. A more modern version of the pillar, let’s say the Pearse memorial pillar compromising of an central pillar and an outer circular glass carriage that was electrically hoisted to the top of the pillar thereby giving people a breath taking view of the city, would be functional, self financing, a tourist attraction and something that belonged and enjoyed by all the people of our country. Instead some shit arse decided Ireland wanted to celebrate the Millennium by erecting a steel stick in the middle of the capital city. Pointing upwards it reminds everybody of how our city officials had big ideas at the start but found those ideas narrowing into what we see today, a pole in a hole. Similarly, road safety initiatives are cloned from things we see on the other side of the pond. Never ever drink and drive, that is unless you are a politician who can say sorry and continue on his or her’s merry way, as you and I are hauled before a judge who just happened to have a quick one before he drove to the courthouse to administer justice on those who kneel before him and beg for his mercy.

Where have all the learner drivers gone we may ask or as Gerry Adams would say “They have not gone away”, they have just changed their appearance and now work in the background? When Gaybo said the Gardai would use their own discretion when applying the law, it opened yet another chapter in the case of an Irish answer to an Irish problem make the laws and then apply those laws on a case by case, day by day, individual by individual basis. Tell the people the laws apply and then use the nod and wink approach in order to confuse people even more. Tell the people the law will apply from Monday but on Tuesday the Gardai will use their discretion. In this way if road fatalities increase and learner drivers are the cause of these fatalities then at least the Gardai can be hung out to dry by the minister or the RSA for not upholding the law. Either way the Gardai are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. But conflicting information continuously streams out from within these authorities as if they are not quite sure how their great ideas will work in the real world.

There are 2.5 million motor vehicles on Irish roads today, majority of households have two or more cars and an increasing numbers of people commute to their place of work from distances never seen before the days of the Celtic Tiger. What took working class people decades to do in other countries was instantly achieved by the vast majority of Irish people, through the governments Celtic Tiger financial feel good factor encouraged everybody to promote the Tiger and buy, buy, buy. The motor industry boomed, the service sector went into overdrive and the government reaped in the taxes and duties on everything from a hand wipes to a luxury motor vehicles. Irish road construction companies with the brown envelope consent from government were unquestionably encouraged to submit cost estimates for work that would cost half as much for similar work done in other EU jurisdictions. As the money poured in to government coffers, nobody within the walls of Leinster House asked about the future consequences such wasteful use of public money would have when the boom days were over. The hotel industry bloomed as their greed made them want more and more profit, as they disposed ( real patriots)of their Irish labour force in favour of cheap foreign labour that does not demand proper standards of employment and is available 24/7 sometimes without a break. Now when you want a drink in an Irish hotel you now need to have knowledge of Polish or some eastern European language. The craic, the chat and the friendly Irish smile is now replaced by faces that has a given function and very little beyond that, and the hotels reap in profits that shame their willingness to pay their foreign workers a decent wage, thereby brightening up their life.

You may say what has all this to do with learner drivers going underground? Well when you think of it, if our collective bunches of Irish political representatives were directors of Ireland Inc. and the people were the shareholders then the positions of very many politicians in that company would become untenable. While I have the deepest respects for Mr Byrne as a broadcaster, his quality and experience as a broadcaster is unquestionable, but I must question his ability to chair a position where he has no real practical or

professional experience of anything to do with motoring and road safety. There again I cannot blame Mr Byrne for this shortfall, one must question the ability of those in authority to appoint a person based on their professionalism in the field rather than their public popularity as television or radio broadcasters. There is absolutely no doubt about it, the whole learner driver debacle was handled poorly and badly by people in the highest of authority. Not only did they get the initial initiative badly wrong but they then went on to complicate the problem even further by not re-evaluating the situation and coming with a solution that would gain overall public support and be seen to be fair to those who found themselves in a problem not of their own making.

We now have a situation where instead of promoting a reduction in learner driver fatalities, by forcing drivers to remove their L plates the RSA has directly contributed to a problem that could have been avoided if more thought had been placed on the consequences the hasty introductions of these rules would have on motorists who require a motor vehicle as a necessity rather than as a social advantage. Telling people they will have a driving test within twelve weeks is no consolation to the many that live beyond the boundaries of urban public transportation. If Irish driving schools had used their many years of operation to enhance the standards of their instructors to a point where the RSA had no problem in certifying all those instructors, then possibly the excuse for learner drivers not passing their driving tests would have been founded on their unwillingness to want to pass the test rather than the poor quality of instruction so many learner drivers complain about. The reality of the situations is this, of the small numbers of instructors passing the RSA training program as certified driving instructors there are a far greater number of instructors to date who have not completed the certification process despite the regulations stating that all driving instructors must be certified by 31^st December 2008. Once again the Irish solution to an Irish problem is build the house before the foundations are laid and then worry about problems as they come along. What does stand out (because of the visible lack of L plates) is the number of foreign nationals who are driving around unaccompanied on L plates. Again, possibly everybody is not aware of these new regulations and will only realise their mistakes when they receive a fine or a letter for a court appearance in the post.

Despite the good intentions of the RSA to resolve a problem that had to be resolved sooner rather than later, the speed by which the RSA wished to implement the new rules and the time factor allowed for compliance was more of a pipe dream rather than a genuine method of helping people resolve their situation and become compliant. We are all aware that prohibition does not work and just drives the problem further underground, yet many people through no fault of their own are being forced to flout the law. The Gardai for their part have been aware of this problem for many years but are now being told to uphold a regulation they themselves knew would cause problems on its introduction. The learner driver problem may dissipate over time as new entrants on driving permits become accustomed to the regulations governing the driving of a motor vehicle while unaccompanied by a qualified driver. If Ireland maintains its past ways into the future then I’m afraid the new driving permits will be seen as old provisional licences in disguise. We wait and see.

I recently had the good fortune of having my last penalty points removed from my license. At the most, I’d accumulated 6 – all for speeding, but now I’m back to zero.

How about you?…

If you want to become a pilot you have to do a test that determines how you can process a bombardment of information coming at you from all sides. How can your brain select from the view out the cockpit window, your instrument readouts, what you hear on the radio, what the co-pilot is telling you and sensory feedback from the plane itself, i.e. the controls, which bits of information to focus your concentration on.

Some people do not have the ability to filter. they cannot concentrate on one bit of information alone, they get completely overwhelmed and either panic or freeze. It is not dissimilar in a car.

When doing a right turn, you must take into account what’s behind you, in front of you, and, of course, to the right and left. All this while taking into account how fast you are, what gear you’re in, signaling and possibly arguing with whoever is in the vehicle with you at the time. Some people are great and can do all the above while on the phone (hope the insurance pays).

The same principle comes into action here.

Some people are not able to filter information, they are subjected to a constant torrent of it flooding at them from all angles at all times.

If you see someone approaching a turn and slowing down to 2.5 km/h about 2 miles before they approach the turn while signaling left instead of right, then stop for 5 minutes and finally turn while almost crashing head on into oncoming traffic they didn’t see and continue oblivious to the mess of beeping and swearing they left behind, you can be pretty sure that person has trouble filtering information according to what’s important and not. To them a lamppost on the side of the street has the same priority as a car screaming at them at 100 km/h with lights flashing and horn blaring.

If a pilot fails this test he is told he cannot become a pilot. If a driver fails his test, he repeats it 258 times till he finds a tester kind enough to finally pass him, so he can go out there and wreak havoc.

It’s about time we all stopped regarding driving as a god-given right that entitles each and everyone of us to be on the roads and took testing a bit more serious and introduce retesting to weed out people who are ticking time bombs and will someday kill themselves or a school bus full of children, because they where concentrating on a potted plant by the side of the road instead of the oncoming bus.

BBC Radio Northampton

[audio:080530-BBCRadioNorthampton.mp3]

(Note: The presenter goes on for 4 minutes, introducing the topic before the interview itself starts)

Just the other week I was astounded by what I believe to possibly be the worst parking ever. While eating lunch I noticed this car come the wrong way around the corner.

I still can’t believe what happened next. The car stopped and the driver got out and casually walked into the main building. The car was parked for at least 5-10 mins before the driver finally returned at which point I realised that she had left a very young child in the car. Just what gave her the idea that this was sensible is beyond me, especially since there were spaces available to park in.

Making no distinction between hand-held and hands-free usage of mobile phones, Noel Brett of the RSA said that “using a mobile phone while driving distracts the driver, impairs their control of the vehicle and reduces their awareness of what is happening around them.”

Motorists caught holding a mobile phone to their heads while driving face fines of up to €2,000 and 4 penalty points on their license. The organisation is now running a new campaign, including a 30 second radio advertisement, encouraging people not to use their mobile phones AT ALL (including via bluetooth headsets and speakers) while driving suggesting you “switch off before you drive off” – and if you really need to make a call, pull over and switch it back on.

The full press release can be seen via the RSA web site, here – and their leaflet “Mobile Phones & Driving” can be obtained (in PDF format) here.

Just a thought though – aren’t sat navs (GPS systems) just as distracting as phones with bluetooth – or perhaps even more so, as you actually have to LOOK away from the windscreen and the road ahead to use it?

Driving appears to be a new revelation here! People seem to be under the impression that the OVERTAKING lane is called a FASTLANE… Theres no such thing. Day in, day out, I come across a**holes who are of the idea that sitting in the overtaking lane is acceptable if you stay to the speed limit.

As far as im aware not every one living here is a member of the Garda Traffic Corps. Who are the people who think sitting in the overtaking is ok if you are travelling at the speed limit??? They arent Garda and have no right to impede other drivers , where do they get their licenses ( lucky Dips perhaps ). Im sick of being stuck behind morons policing the roads when im constantly held up by them on my way to work.

I ask all who read this to observe drivers in the morning ( or when ever ) to count how many people REFUSE to pull into the LEFT LANE when a car approaches them in the overtaking lane, yet due to time constraints i am forced to undertake them to make it to work on time. They may think they are doing their part for road safety but a frustrated driver will take chances ( more so when they are held up by people who OWN the road).

These same people will then speed up to stop you undertaking them and quite happily break the speed limit at the same time…This must be the only country in the world with out a standardised learning system to bring eveyones standards to the same level. Have these people never heard of traffic flow,common courtesy,pulling into the left lane to allow others to pass?? NAHHH. I have driven in countries like germany, UK,N.Ireland even South Africa and they all have courtesy on the roads and allow faster moving cars to pass by pulling into the left lane, In fact im sure Ireland is the only country on Gods Green Earth that has a Website dedicated to shite drivers.

IRELAND PLEASE READ THE HIGHWAY CODE!!!!!!!!!!! Indicators seem to be faulty on most cars here too, i have many grey hairs from people just pulling into lanes without any indication what so ever, How can people who are BAD DRIVERS TEACH PEOPLE TO DRIVE!!! Lets get things regulated here with a standard set by the government which all Instructors must follow, Im Irish and Embarassed….

The programme, “Late & Live” will have, among the topics tackled, the issue of young drivers and “boy racers” in Northern Ireland.

I’ve also been asked to find out if there are any ShiteDrivers.com contributors or readers who feel they could add something to this debate and would like to take part in it. If there are, please send an email to me at Admin@ShiteDrivers.com (as soon as possible) letting me know and I’ll put you in touch with the programme producers.

See comments for more info on this.

Niall O’Keeffe