Department may screen driving test applicants

On-the-road driving tests could soon be scrapped if Department of the Environment plans go ahead.

With concern about long waiting lists for tests in some parts of the State, and figures showing more than 300,000 motorists driving on provisional licences only, the Department is looking at the possibility of using computer-based testing systems to deal with the backlog.

These computer tests are already used in Finland and Sweden and in a number of US states, including California, where its proponents claim it has improved driving standards.

The test - similar to the "virtual reality" driving games used in amusement arcades - replicates the vehicle's environment, requiring applicants to operate all basic controls like steering, braking, clutching and changing gear. The movements of the "vehicle" are recorded on screen. The computer also records mistakes in the same way the traditional test official does.

But the biggest difference from the conventional test is that the computer system can routinely throw up road "hazards" to which the person being tested must react.

The computer itself then decides whether the applicant has passed or failed, although there is a right of appeal.

A Department spokesman confirmed the system was being "actively considered", while accepting there would be probably be strong public resistance to it. "But when you think about it, the whole point of the driving test is to examine an applicant's manual and observational skills and reflexes, as well as knowledge of the rules of the road - all of which can be done by the computer," the spokesman said.

"You can also replicate different driving conditions - rain, darkness, or city traffic. With the traditional test, if you're doing it at three o' clock in the afternoon in Carrick-on-Shannon [Co Leitrim] it's a pretty restricted range of skills you're being tested on."

With any move to computer-testing having implications for the jobs of the state's driving testers, who are IMPACT members, there would be extensive negotiations before the system was approved.

Another problem for the officials is how severe the test should be. "When they started it in California, there was some controversy over the standard," the Department spokesman said. "There were applicants claiming traumatic stress because the computer required them to swerve out of the way of a careering articulated truck and they weren't quick enough".