Cork campaigner wants 'gaping' learner driver loophole closed

Thousands of learner drivers, he said, were booking tests but not showing up and rolling over their learner permit for another year and many continued to do this for years and years. File image

The “gaping” loophole on learner driving permits, which can be rolled over without sitting a driving test, must be addressed by the Road Safety Authority.

That’s according to road safety campaigner, Noel Clancy from Kilworth in Cork, who was commenting on new figures showing that while fatal road collisions involving learner drivers have fallen the majority continue to involve unaccompanied learner drivers.

Mr Clancy lost his wife, Geraldine, and daughter, Louise, in a road traffic accident involving an unaccompanied learner driver in December 2015 and has since campaigned to secure a change in legislation called the Clancy Amendment.

Introduced in December 2018, the legislative change makes it an offence for the owner of a vehicle to knowingly allow an unaccompanied learner or an unlicensed person to drive his or her vehicle.

Figures furnished in the Dáil last week in response to a question by Social Democrats co-leader Catherine Murphy show that the number of fatal road collisions involving learner drivers has halved since 2017 but that most continue to involve unaccompanied learner drivers.

Since 2017, there have been 29 fatal collisions involving learner drivers, of whom 24 were unaccompanied. The accidents led to 31 deaths.

The RSA said the number of learner driver fatal collisions remained “unacceptable”.

On the reduction in fatalities it said: “It is difficult for certain to say exactly why there has been a decline but one factor is probably the increased penalties, enforcement of those penalties and the awareness-raising effort that has gone into highlighting the consequences of not sticking to the terms and conditions of a learner permit."

The RSA stressed that a learner permit was not a licence but allowed someone to learn to drive under strict conditions.

It also confirmed that Gardaí seized the vehicles of 2,513 learner drivers who were detected driving unaccompanied in 2019 and a further 2,701 vehicles in the first 10 months of 2020.

A member of the PARC road safety group, Mr Clancy, however, said that while Gardai had done a lot of work in the past two years enforcement varied greatly across the country and was not at 100%.

The failure of the RSA to close the “gaping” loophole on learner driving permits, he said, continues to be one of the biggest challenges.

Thousands of learner drivers, he said, were booking tests but not showing up and rolling over their learner permit for another year and many continued to do this for years and years.

“The RSA has not closed the loophole that allows learner drivers to roll over their permit. 20,000 people a year do that,” Mr Clancy said.

“The RSA identified that as a problem they had to solve in 2014. Here we are in 2020 and they have made no effort to solve it."