New plans to tackle driving test log jam

Additional measures to clear the backlog of people waiting for their driving tests are being planned by the Road Safety Authority (RSA), its chief executive, Noel Brett, said last night.

He said it was unacceptable that 430,000 people were driving on provisional licences.

Minister for Transport Martin Cullen has also asked the RSA to review the measures being used to reduce the waiting list when it assumes responsibility for driver testing and training in September.

"This review will take us into 2007. We do have additional plans to tackle the backlog and these will depend on the success of those measures currently in place," Mr Brett said. "Getting the wait for a driving test down to six weeks or under has to be the foundation stone of driver safety."

The department this year agreed a 12-month bonus scheme with driver testers for 40,000 additional tests during evenings and weekends. It also signed a contract with an outside firm, SGS, to provide another 45,000 tests. SGS will start providing tests in October. In June, Mr Cullen said he would consider outsourcing a second tranche of tests to the private sector if the existing measures did not reduce the waiting list sufficiently.

Mr Brett said reducing the waiting list was the first step in a reform of driver training. He said it was "bizarre that you can turn up for a driving test, fail that test, be deemed incompetent to drive, and just drive away".

More than 138,000 drivers are currently waiting for a test. In some centres the wait is up to one year.

Impact, the trade union which represents driver testers, said almost 90,000 tests have been carried out so far this year by its members, 25,000 of them under the bonus scheme. However, it said 8,000 tests were cancelled because the applicant failed to turn up or had a car that was not roadworthy.

Tom Hoare, Impact assistant general secretary, said: "Driving testers have worked every daylight hour over the summer to cut waiting times. There is no question the 40,000 target will be met."

Responding to a report in The Irish Times yesterday that 2,110 sick days were taken by testers in the last 18 months, Mr Hoare said while this was correct, not every sick day resulted in cancelled tests.

"We have a couple of people on long-term sick leave and in their case tests wouldn't be assigned to them. So not every sick day led to test cancellations.

"But, of course, some do. If you are out in a driving test and someone rear-ends you - you are due back an hour later to take out the next person, but that might have to be cancelled. It is the difference between incidental sick leave and occupational injuries. The department makes no distinction."