Safety chiefs to put brakes on driving instructors

THE brakes will be put on dodgy driving instructors thanks to rigid rules being finalised by road safety chiefs. Under new controls to be announced, unregulated driving tutors will be out of a job.

At the moment, there are 2,200 instructors in Ireland who charge a variety of prices for lessons. But they are unregulated and not obliged to train or comply with standards of competency, safety or hygiene.

Learner drivers are often left with no clue as to the quality of tuition they book. This will change under proposals the Road Safety Authority (RSA) will announce in April.

“Today in Ireland there is no regulation of the industry whatsoever. You literally just say you’re a driving instructor and there you go,” explained the RSA’s chief executive Noel Brett. There are currently 440,000 provisional driving licence holders on Irish roads, 360,000 of whom drive cars. As revealed by the Irish Examiner though, nearly half of learner drivers who sat driving tests last year failed. Road safety chiefs want to root out bad tuition and so help boost pass rates at test centres.

“We will be in a position to accept applications from driving instructors to be registered with the Road Safety Authority. And it will be an offence for anybody to teach driving for a reward without the approval of the Road Safety Authority. Anybody who’s teaching driving in this country will be of a standard. We will be able to guarantee that standard and are now finalising the regulations,” said Mr Brett.

To register, instructors will have to go through a detailed three-part exam process.

Instructors will also get garda clearance, and will have to prove they are tax compliant and produce character references for the first time, under the regulations.

Sex offenders will also be banned from working as instructors.

The standard of their vehicle and appearance will also be checked regularly. The application process is expected to be advertised by July.

Not all standards are finalised, according to chief executive Des Cummins of the Driving Instructor Register of Ireland (DIR).

In addition, register fees for accredited tutors remain unknown. The DIR has more than 1,400 members. But it admits many sole traders are working instructor roles, without check.

Complaints include instructors arriving late for lessons, issues of hygiene, as well as inappropriate physical contact.

“We have been operating on a voluntary capacity and we expect these statutory regulations will be phased in for instructors over 12 to 18 months,” said Mr Cummins adding that the DIR “regularly” get complaints of sub-standard tuition.