Irish Examiner view: Instructors should keep eyes on road

Instructors exploiting learner drivers at a particularly vulnerable time is utterly reprehensible and inexcusable, and punishment should be swift.

Older readers may remember a series of successful Confessions films in the 1970s featuring Robin Askwith, films which played on what might generously be termed seaside humour. 

Askwith’s misadventures with the opposite sex came in the guise of Confessions of a popstar, or a window cleaner — or a driving instructor.

Revelations about complaints made by learner drivers to the Road Safety Authority (RSA) suggest that Askwith’s film may have been closer to real life than anyone thought.

There were 128 complaints made by learner drivers about driving instructors last year, almost seven times as many as the RSA received in 2021. 

Those complaints were made about approved driving instructors and they make for shocking reading.

One instructor told a 28-year-old female learner she was “drop-dead gorgeous”, asked if she was single, and said “who’s your daddy” 15 times, while another told a 22-year-old student that “girls on their period never do well in their driving test”.

There could hardly be a clearer case of sexual harassment, plain and simple, but the circumstances add to the discomfort — learning to drive is a proverbially stressful experience, and having to endure harassment from the very person charged with guiding one through that process makes the experience far worse.

Instructors exploiting learner drivers at a particularly vulnerable time is utterly reprehensible and inexcusable, and punishment should be swift.

However, sanction will have to come from outside the industry itself. It has emerged that the Approved Driving Instructors Union is in the process of disbanding and becoming the Professional Driving Instructors Association, and a representative was not in a position to comment, as “neither organisation really exists at this moment”.

As excuses for media silence go, this is a new departure, but it is indicative of a level of chaos in this sector which does not bode well for those trying to learn to drive. 

That chaos extends to other sections of the motoring industry as well — the backlog in National Car Test (NCT) appointments has led to ministerial calls for the operator to be fined millions of euro, for instance.

Regarding the new driving instructors association, the litany of serious complaints against some driving instructors reveals perhaps why the organisation feels the need for a rebrand under the word “professional”.

Whatever the reason, driving instructors would be advised from now on to keep their eyes on the road.