The Irish Driving Scene.an Instructors Perspective.
By Robin Piggott, Tue Dec 6th

The Irish Driving Scene.An Instructors Perspective

The Driving Environment

Today’s motoring environment is very different to that of thirtyor even fifteen years ago for a number of key reasons and wewill examine these to get an idea of the kind of skills neededto survive in today’s world and stay accident free. For thefirst time in over one hundred and fifty years our populationhas exceeded 4 million and continues to increase steadily.Demographics The age of our population is quite unique andaccording to the 2002 census there are approximately 640,200people in the 15 – 24 age bracket who are in, or approaching,the age at which they will want to drive. Lets be clear on thispoint …every person in today’s Ireland will aspire to drive andown a car in this prosperity environment, for career, family andsocial reasons .In the past until you had the potential to beable to own a car it was quite common not to bother to learn todrive. Those that needed to get to work from a distance tendedto rely on neighbours and friends or relatives to be the everpresent chauffeur. It’s very common today for an exodus from thecity limits out to the open country to live, with huge numbersof houses, sorry mansions; being constructed at seeminglybreakneck speed. The draw of the country air and the sweetsounds of birds in the morning seems to be an irresistiblemagnet for the city dweller. A car or three is taken forgranted. Of course , we are a nation of keen gardeners now andthe regular trip to the garden centre could not be undertaken bypublic transport because it doesn’t exist in most rural areas.All of this means that we have a far greater number of cars anddrivers on the road than thirty years ago and at different timesof day due to many variations in working hours. So there ishardly a time when you are unlikely to meet another vehicle. Sixam during the working week can be just as dangerous as fivethirty rush hour. Learner Drivers Current numbers of learnerDrivers are estimated at 350,000 and this continues to beswelled by the increase in our immigrant population, bothexpatriates and non-nationals setting up home here for the firsttime. The waiting list for a Driving Test has reached an alltime high due mainly to these demographics, but also to therelatively small number of Driving Examiners . This situation isbeing addressed at the moment with the probability of an outsideagency being drafted in to undertake a further 40,000 DrivingTests over the course of a year .While it is unfortunate thatall drivers have to wait such a long time in order to sit theirTest it is an opportunity for them to learn some very essentialskills and to prepare well for the Test. It is very common forcandidates to leave their lessons to the last moment which veryoften produces a negative result. Worse still, is the mistakenbelief that the longer one is driving the greater chance ofpassing the Driving Test. Without professional lessons thechances of passing the Test are pretty remote; but more crucialwill be the lack of basic skills leading to accidents which canand should be preventable .Passing the Driving Test, whilecertainly a milestone in a person’s driving career, is only thebeginning of a life –long process not the end. ProfessionalTuition Safe Driving for Life can be achieved, with the correctmind set and the knowledge that good basic driving skills arethe foundation for the learning process and need to be providedby Professional Instructors and not relatives or friends.Practise with Mum or Dad is very useful but only in conjunctionwith proper Tuition. Being able to move a car down the road andperhaps change a gear or two and even steer out of trouble isnot the level of skill needed to stay alive and is about as farfrom the required Driving Test standard

as we are from theMoon.(about 250,000 miles, sorry 400,000Km at the last count).Iam not suggesting that we need to drive a quarter of a millionmiles New Technology The development of technology over the lastnumber of years has had a big impact on the driving environmentboth positive and negative. Better roads and road markings makethe driving experience much more pleasurable especially on majorthoroughfares; however despite the millions of Euro spent on themain road infrastructure, Irish country roads will probablyremain as they have always been, difficult and full of dangerfor the novice or Tourist Driver. Legislation, most of which hasemanated from Europe, has contributed to better maintained cars,that are more Eco-friendly and more easy to drive. Having saidthat, a car will quite easily go off and do its own thing if thedriver has not got the ability to control it under all kinds ofweather and road conditions. Cars are much better insulated thanyears ago so the impression of speed is nothing like what it wasthirty or forty years ago when you really knew you weretravelling at 70mph.Wind noise and vibration kept you alert andaware! Even small family cars today have the ability to travelat 100mph (or 156kph) without too much coaxing .Back then a muchlarger capacity engine of say 1500 cc had a top speed of around75mph (120kph).This ease of speed gives new and novice driversthe opportunity to far exceed their capabilities withoutrealising it . Employment In today’s Ireland we have virtuallyfull employment and many sectors are suffering from a lack ofskilled employees, the commercial driving sector being one ofmany. More jobs and the need to get to those jobs on time hascreated a society that is flush with prosperity and awash withan ever increasing number of new cars on the road. Theopportunities now being created for younger people with fullDriving Licenses are many. Indeed most occupations now requireyou to have a full driving license and it certainly looks goodon a C.V. especially if you are in the younger age bracket. Soget to it all you young ones and don’t leave it till later on inyour career…. Do it now! Accidents Most of these new cars on theroad are being piloted by Learner Drivers, a good proportion ofwhom, do not take driving lessons professionally. Unlike most ofthe rest of our European Neighbours, we do not yet havemandatory tuition for learner drivers, although it is beingproposed. Therefore we have a situation whereby learner driverscan buy a car and just head off into the wide blue yonderwithout the necessary skills to control what is essentially alethal weapon. Our Accident statistics bear out this point andit would be of great benefit to the whole community to see areduction in these horrific figures Recent E.U. Directives haveextended the scope of the Driving Test and not before time.There has to be at least a basic knowledge of instruments andequipment before you can pass the Driving Test today but thereare still many areas of driving expertise that do not comewithin the remit of the Irish Driving Test. An emergency stop;country road driving; high speed carriageway experience and agreater emphasis on hazard perception would go a long way toimproving standards on today’s roads by being incorporated intothe Driving Test.

About the author: Robin Piggott is the owner of Astral School of Motoring whichis based in Limerick, Ireland.He has thirty five years ofDriving Experience,and including teaching in–house.

http://www.astralmotoring.ie> http://astralmotoring.blogspot.com