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Joe Giltrap : Farce over driving licences must end
THE DRIVING licence fiasco in Ireland has been coming to a head for a
long time. The Government and the insurance companies must take full blame.
Some people have been driving on provisional licences for years. They
now regard it as their right to do so and depend on their cars for work
and leisure.
The Government decided to crackdown on learner drivers but neglected to
consult the very people who would be responsible for enforcing it —
namely the gardaí.
The result is that they had to backtrack on the proposal and postpone
it for a few months.
The plan — which if you examine it makes one wonder what planet
they all live on — goes something like this: If you have a provisional
driving licence you are supposed to be accompanied by a qualified driver
and display L plates.
That seems fairly straightforward.
However, this has never really been enforced and everybody turned a convenient
blind eye to it.
The Government then decided that you would be prosecuted if you were caught
driving alone while on your SECOND provisional licence.
So, if you managed to survive your first year driving alone on a provisional
licence and are now more experienced and confident you will then be prosecuted
if caught on your second provisional licence.
The whole system is crazy and none of this should ever have been necessary.
Insurance companies hold the key to this and have played their part in
the madness.
They make a lot of money by imposing huge premiums on young learner drivers
without the absolute stipulation that a fully-qualified driver must accompany
them in order to validate the insurance cover.
The Irish Insurance Federation say that if a provisional licence holder
is involved in an accident while unaccompanied claims would be handled
as normal.
It could not be clearer. What kind of a message does that send out? It
says quite clearly that having a qualified driver in the car with you
is just a suggestion but not all that necessary for insurance purposes.
Why comply with the requirement when there are no consequences if you
don’t? What difference does it make?
The answer of course is it makes no difference whatsoever. The law is
there but it is not enforced like so many other laws.
The backlog of people waiting for a driving test is a national disgrace.
I believe that there are over 120,000 people driving on second provisional
licences because there are not enough examiners to cope.
Many people have been driving on provisional licences for years without
doing a test.
There is no excuse for this. Anybody who is on their second or third or
more provisional licence cannot argue that they could not do a driving
test.
They should not be driving and their cars should be confiscated.
They should also not be able to renew a provisional licence unless they
have done a test and failed and are awaiting another.
The Government are clueless and the gardaí can’t be bothered
unless your road tax is out of date.
Meanwhile the insurance companies continue to rake in the cash while the
road casualty figures climb steadily.
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