South Meath Driving School

The penalty points system was introduced ten years ago in Ireland and it frightened the day lights out of us drivers at its inception. For weeks we crawled around wondering if life would ever be the same again behind the wheel. There were very few crashes in that new era – then complacency crept back in and there was a partial return to the older, lesser values. The intervening years, though, show that there has been around the 50% reduction in road deaths which is remarkable. They all said the Irish wouldn’t succumb to all those restrictions that the Dempseys and Varadkars might throw at us, let alone higher up moguls out in Brussels and Munich.

Around one third of motorists here have received penalty points, ranging from two upwards. Half a million stuck on the two, obviously realising that a repeat transgression might mean higher insurance costs or getting on the ladder to disqualification altogether, on reaching twelve points. That feat was achieved by a mere 138 motorists. They will remember the cost in the loss of their wheels and a further rebuke from their insurance company in the times ahead.

Changing driver behaviour was never going to be achieved overnight. The current generation of young drivers were probably the greater critics of their parents’ ill-gotten habits of the ‘60s and ‘70s. As much as we may criticise the young drivers of today, it is my opinion that they are ‘miles’ ahead when it comes to road competency. Then, why shouldn’t they be so? There wasn’t much about driving on the curriculum in St. Michael’s or the ‘Tech’ 40 years past. Education is power, they always said, and so it has proven. Yet, youngsters can never escape the awful fact that in the category of 16 to 25 year olds, they accounted for 38% of road deaths last year. Stark.

The GoSafe vans that mount speed traps at various locations throughout the land have proven a great deterrent for speeding motorists. There’s one regularly perched along the road between Bective and Navan. This week such was the case. Though using my driving school car, with all the signs displayed, I got many friendly reminders from motorists that there could be trouble ahead. It came in the form of a headlight flash. Sure enough, GoSafe was in place. The question is, did those who ‘flashed’ realise that it could amount to a criminal offence and face prosecution in Court? It is to do with interfering with the course of Justice! And you can’t do that, even Pat Shortt knows. You might argue that it would be awfully mean of one not to flash his mother-in-law and tell her that the speed trap was up ahead. Be sensible, don’t defeat a noble purpose.

There’s good news for the Learner Driver involved in the ‘graduated driving licence’  (GDL) scene. The proposed GDL was launched with plenteous publicity and caused many a Leaving Cert student some sleepless hours. It has now been watered down vastly from that initial stance. Out of all the claptrap of zero alcohol levels, night curfew, restricted driving after passing the first of two tests etc., what remains is the greater substance, at least. That is the Essential Driver Training programme and the reduced alcohol level of 20mg. There is due to be a review of the EDT programme, probably later this year, which may merely change the format of the 12 lessons, or there may be more compulsory lessons.

With the death rate on our roads now reduced to less than 190 last year, it is a great challenge to keep the downward trend in train. The momentum is there and, as Willie stated,

‘There is a tide in the affairs of men

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.’