L-drivers given the brush-off

THE letter from Dr Florence Craven (‘L-drivers getting a raw deal’, July 5) gave me hope.

As a learner driver, I am infuriated by suggestions that we are largely to blame for road accidents.

Does the Road Safety Authority have any idea how frustrating it is to be a learner driver?

I know all the rules of the road. I know how to use a roundabout properly, how to overtake and the importance of awareness, but it often seems I am the only one.

To display L plates on your car is to attract aggression from ‘qualified’ drivers or, at best, complete lack of consideration from just about everyone else on the road.

I always try to keep to the speed limit, provided it is safe to do so, but my small car doesn’t have the power sometimes to maintain speed climbing hills.

Instead of trying to understand why I’m not overtaking a truck when there’s a continuous white line, drivers try to intimidate me. On a main road once, when I was slowing down to turn right, a truck driver behind kept beeping his horn. I have never been so scared in my life — I thought I was going to be run off the road. I applied for my driving test in May as the waiting list in Cork city was only six weeks, according to the RSA website.

I decided to wait until I was sure I could pass. Fat lot of good that did me — it’s more than six weeks now and I still haven’t even received a date for my test.

Not only that, but choosing an instructor is a nightmare — one of my friends went to four instructors, all of whom he found to be sub-standard, before he met one who managed to help him achieve that much cherished pink piece of paper. I thought the RSA website would help, but it made me feel worse. Apparently if driving instructors in Ireland are registered, it signifies nothing other than their intention to sit the exams planned for them.

The RSA and the Taoiseach should remember that people are usually understanding when it is admitted a mistake has been made. And there’s no doubt that L-drivers are the victims of a major bureaucratic blunder.

Melissa O’Neill

4 Westbury Grove

Wilton

Cork