Learner plan is impossible, says motoring school

IRELAND’S largest motoring school yesterday shot down government plans to ground learner drivers by next year, saying it was “impossible”.

Driving test delays have jumped by more than a third since the plan was announced.

As Transport Minister Noel Dempsey continued to come under fire for the provisional licence debacle, instructors warned of the panic emerging among learner drivers.

The Irish School of Motoring criticised Mr Dempsey’s plan to take unaccompanied drivers off roads by June 2008.

Despite the extension last weekend of the deadline by another eight months for learners to pass driving tests, the plan was unworkable, said the country’s only nationwide driving school.

Instructors were working flat out, said the school’s general manager Karl Walsh: “The reaction has been overwhelming. We have drafted in ex-employees to help with the demand. There was a lot of panic and general mayhem.”

The Road Safety Authority (RSA) said it had received close to 45,000 new applications for tests since the clampdown on learner drivers was confirmed last Thursday.

“A large number have been applying,” said a spokesman.

These are on top of the 122,000 learners already waiting for tests.

The Irish School of Motoring — which has been in operation since 1961 — specialises in pre-test lessons. Learners pay instructors €150 for a four-hour set of lessons. In recent days, it has received a four-fold increase in hits on its website.

Furthermore, hundreds of extra tests have been booked with the school’s 120 instructors across the country.

Mr Walsh said: “We have all hands on deck, but it’s not easy as people have to be trained.

“It was unnecessary, it’s caused a fuss. The RSA will achieve its goal eventually, but it knew when it was set up there was a huge problem with provisional drivers. Suddenly it imploded with the new law which ultimately will affect one in five drivers out there.

“They should have made it known and then given a decent amount of time, a year. There have been years of neglect with complying with this law. You need a decent amount of time to change that. It is virtually impossible to have everybody tested by June, it’s not going to happen.”

Meanwhile, the blame continued yesterday for who sought the original deadline of October 30 to ground unaccompanied second provisional licence drivers.

Fine Gael said Mr Dempsey had stooped to a new low after his spokesperson reportedly blamed RSA chief Noel Brett for the learner driver fiasco.