South Meath Driving School

Our brilliant road safety record is fast falling away from us: we were world beaters at the turn of the year. Since unlucky ’13 dawned,  we have slipped back to the habits of eight and more years ago. Up to 2012, road deaths in Ireland had dropped an amazing 59% since the first Road Safety Strategy was put in place in 1998 but the decline didn’t accelerate until the ’07 to ’12 Strategy was invoked and which saw a decline of 50% in those years alone.

In ’07,  338 funeral services were held as a result of road crashes. In the following years, those awful figures dropped to 186 in ’11 and to 162 in ’12. The RSA’s plan is to reduce that figure to 124 by 2020.

However, this year shows a dreaded reverse, there being 15 more deaths this year to date over the same period last year – that’s 62 funerals so far in 2013.

A government task force has been set up in response to this development. The new Ministerial Committee on Road Safety is holding its first meeting these days to examine the Garda enforcement of the raod safety strategy.

The admirable achievement of the last seven years was often attributed to the ‘fear factor’ of penalty points for speeding and mandatory road side breath tests for drink driving. When the private speed camera vans first appeared a few years back, road crashes and speeding offences dropped to an all time low. The vans are distinctive and soon drivers flashed others to warn of its presence. So, is it an enforcement problem or were our good drivers not being so good at all.

Over the last year the number of Gardai in the Traffic Corps was reduced from a high of 1,250 to 900 which opposition parties in the Dail and the great Gaybo refer to as ‘inadequate resources,’ inter alia. I believe there is an enforcement problem. In the past two weeks, I travelled 130 miles south and 80 miles west (return) without seeing a Garda in uniform, let alone coming across a Traffic Corps checkpoint. Then of course, no more than anyone else, I wasn’t exactly wishing to encounter one! But, that’s not the point.

I read of an experiment in Australia. A long stretch of motorway was plagued with speedsters and crashes. The State patrols were few and ‘resources’ stretched. So, a single policeman stood beside his patrolcar inside the hard shoulder for some fifteen minutes at a time before moving progressively about 20 miles. This was repeated for a week. In that time, crashes reduced drastically as did speeding offences. Simply, high visibility policing reminded drivers to keep the law, by slowing down and to overtake more carefully. It didn’t cost an arm and a leg – just a presence of one high visibility policeman and a single car. And now, with all the Garda stations that are closing, should we not expect a greater presence on our roads.  Hey, Ray Butler, tell Leo Varadkar about my suggested Irish (Australian) experiment and save real cash.

Well, Leo is in the throes of drafting the new Road Traffic Bill 2013. The Bill will provide for learner drivers and newly qualified drivers being put off the road if they accumulate just 6 penalty points. Those newly qualified drivers will have to display an ‘N’ for novice plate for two years after passing the test. There will also be an increase in penalty points for speeding, mobile phone use while driving and failing to wear a seat belt.

A further important aspect of this Bill will be roadside impairment tests for Drug Driving. I welcome it as I firmly believe drugs to have been the silent killer on Irish roads for decades.

Learner drivers have nothing to fear with this new Bill. I find that with education and a fitting attitude, young drivers of the morrow will leave their dads, mams and grans in the shade. Ni neart go cur le ceile. Come on Lads and Lassies! Believe. Get those statistics of ’13 rectified. There’s time.

Many moons have come and gone since Jimmy Joe sat his driving test in Carrick town. There was little preparation. ‘Look in the mirror now and again and don’t drive too slowly,’ advised a fellow driver who had recently passed his test. It was a time before roundabouts, changing lanes, Zebra crossings, let alone a Toucan crossing, and there were no traffic lights in Carrick. There are still no such lights there – they believe in ‘keeping it country’ yet they do have traffic lights on their treasured canals and waterways.

Oh, and JJ passed his test. He drove around for a half hour, negotiating junctions, a turnabout and reverse, and proved to be proficient.

There were less than one million vehicles on our roads in those 1970’s, now there are nearly x2.5 times that figure. There was no standard of test set by the Dept of Transport until 2007 when the Road Safety Authority was assigned the task.

Out of that design came the Essential Driver Training, a must – do 12 lessons with an Approved Driving Instructor (ADI)  before sitting the driving test and some other strings attached. Our roads are of the Continental style now with hatched areas, yellow box junctions, flyovers etc. Modern drivers are skilled and educated to the dangers lurking out there, thanks to the new programme.

However, the driving test format hasn’t changed drastically since JJ’s sojourn in Carrick town.

There’s one tester with a pad on his/her knee sitting beside the nervous candidate for about a half hour’s drive around the town, then back in for a certificate of competency or the other unwanted one.

Looking at candidates on the day, it’s as much a test of nerve as competency. The ADI should have an input for this test; the ADI is the one who has tutored, tailored and observed for at least six months (in accordance with the new regulations.)

The final decision is with one person. Testers are well trained, too. However, I disagree that one tester should be assigned the sole power to decide on what I believe can be a matter of opinion vis a vis a matter of fact. Take the driving fault stated at section 6 of the Test Report Form:

‘Allow sufficient clearance to pedestrians, cyclists, stationary vehicles etc.’  Taking the latter situation (passing  stationary vehicles) – a whiz kid of 17 years with excellent spatial awareness skills might be only inches from a number of parked vehicles on Kennedy Road (Navan) as he meets a large van coming from the opposite direction. This young driver knew what he was doing and that there was no danger of his wing mirror clipping that of the parked vehicles. Yet the tester thought different. He was too close. Tick eight more boxes for minor infringements and you fail by one.

Yes, he was 2 over the speed limit, he didn’t ‘observe’ properly turning right and left and the gears grated a little, etc. Apply again. Mammy, more driving lessons, more money. Oh, and another 103 euro to re-sit the test. A retest should be at 50% of the original cost.

I have to honestly ask the question, what had the half hour’s test drive to do with road safety, generally? There’s hardly a whit of difference between JJ’s test in Carrick in the 70’s and that of today. Driving in traffic tests the ability to clutch and brake and that aforementioned ‘spatial awareness’ thing, being aware of things in the space around you and the body’s position in its space.

Driving at 50 k/ph for a half hour does little to test the adrenalin – soaked adolescent. About 70% of all fatal crashes occur on regional and local roads. A more stringent test would be like that of  the Trim to Kildalkey road, onto Athboy and back to Navan. Dealing with farm machinery, overtaking tractors, cyclists and the like and changing a wheel on the way should all be a better test of a driver’s ability. What about a night time drive or in varying weather conditions?

I would propose a second test after two years, taking in motorway driving, parking in shopping centres and driving in crowded areas. As practically every young person has the ambition to drive, it should be part of the school curriculum in conjunction with drink driving awareness, drug taking, speed, and having talks by victims of crashes.

The car is a lethal weapon that kills some 1.2 million people world-wide, annually. Let the bicycle be promoted as a wonderful means of transport. The use of public transport and walking should also be encouraged.

Alas, how does the EDT system compare with what existed beforehand? Let’s compare the pass rates from random driving test centres, keeping in mind that the EDT system was introduced in April 2011.

Sligo and Longford centres show a slight increase in their pass rates. But, look at Navan – the pass rate last year is down 7% on  ’08 and Portlaoise is extraordinary in that their pass rate is down nearly 20% on ’08, while drivers in Sligo have a 20% better chance of passing than in Navan. Put another way, drivers in Sligo are 20% better than drivers in Meath! It does not make much sense as better standards of driving are proving true in road death and serious injury figures. Ireland is now a leading light in Europe and the world so why doesn’t the test pass rates reflect such in this county or Laois, for instance.

Where does that leave the EDT system? Before April ’11 there were no compulsory lessons; then it was 12 such lessons of one hour’s duration and the standard falls in Meath and Laois while it rises in Longford and Sligo. Incidentally, there was 1 fatal collision in Laois in 2011 and none in ’12. Yeah, those damned statistics. With the new standard of instruction, there’s no reason that the pass rate should reduce to any extent. A lot of people are concerned that failure rates in the NCT garages and driving test centres might relate to a financial clause. I just hope it does not.

Soon, a driving instructor may accompany a candidate during his/her test. It’s crumbs from the master’s table as there can be no further input from the ADI.

I would recommend that a camera or cameras be placed in the test vehicle (during the test) and that there be two testers and the option of the ADI being present. Afterwards, there should be a consultation process before a result be concluded. Of course it would delay the system. A result need not be instantaneous – let it arrive in the post in days or a week.

Pope Francis is changing the way of The Curia after that system of governance of the Church being in place for aeons. There is no right of reply for the candidate who fails the driving test. The cost is rising at every turn: each day for the motorist  is a Good Friday – s/he’s being crucified financially. It’s time for the dictatorial system to fade quickly. That being said, I hasten to add that the testers and supervisors that I know are basically honest and hard working. As Con O’Houlihan used say, maybe the problem is with the sums.