A record number of learner drivers failed to attend for their driving test in October, with 1,089 \u201cno shows\u201d.<\/p>\n
The highest monthly figure is among the 8,550 no-shows for the year to the end of November.<\/p>\n
Last year overall, 8,663 learners failed to put in an appearance, up from 6,440 in 2023.<\/p>\n
No-show candidates do not cancel their test, but fail to attend. This means their appointment slot cannot be taken by another learner driver.<\/p>\n
The figures were issued as it emerged that driving-test waiting times had dropped slightly from an average of 11.42 weeks at the end of November to 11.38 weeks on December 19th. <\/p>\n
This is, however, 1.38 weeks above the target of 10 weeks, which was achieved in September after years of increases. <\/p>\n
Mulhuddart, west Dublin, remains the test centre with the highest waiting time of 22 weeks, followed by D\u00fan Laoghaire at 21 weeks. Newcastle West, Co Limerick, has the shortest waiting time at six weeks. However, 28 of the State\u2019s 57 test centres have waiting times above target.<\/p>\n
Susan Gray, who chairs road safety campaign group Parc, said: \u201cDriving-test waiting times are climbing since hitting the target in September. The no-shows are climbing, which we\u2019ve always said was a huge factor in driving-test waiting times because it\u2019s clogging up the whole system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Gray, who criticised the Government\u2019s U-turn<\/a> last week on a plan to overhaul the Road Safety Authority<\/a> (RSA), said the organisation \u201cdoesn\u2019t seem to have the capability of realising what the dogs in the street know: no-shows climbing, driving-test waiting times climbing; there has to be a connection\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIf testers are sitting, wasting their time, it does not matter how many more testers they get because a percentage of them will be twiddling their thumbs,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n \u201cThey said in 2013 about learner drivers rolling over their permits that it was a massive problem.<\/p>\n \u201cThey put Action Plan 33 into their road safety strategy. It said they were going to end learner drivers getting multiple permits and close that loophole by the first quarter of 2014. It\u2019s still a problem 11 years later and getting bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n The no-show figures were issued to Fine Gael<\/a> Dublin West TD Emer Currie<\/a>, who said she was \u201cextremely disappointed\u201d at another record number. <\/p>\n \u201cThe minimum number this year was in January when 533 failed to turn up, so it\u2019s likely to be a record year. Last year\u2019s figure was 8,663 and it\u2019s already at 8,550 up to November.\u201d<\/p>\n She said the RSA had been given a year to sort the multi-permit problem, \u201cbut in the meantime the no-shows mean that 8,550 hours of driver tester time is wasted\u201d. <\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the equivalent of four driver testers each being fully paid for almost a year yet doing no tests,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe RSA is getting almost \u20ac750,000 in fees for the no-shows, but the authority\u2019s job is not fundraising.\u201d<\/p>\n An RSA spokesman said the 8,550 no-shows represented 3.5 per cent of all tests booked. <\/p>\n \u201cSince the driver testing service changed to self-serve in December 2020, there has been a marked decrease in the number of no-shows, which were running at 11.1 per cent in 2019,\u201d the RSA said.<\/p>\n Ms Currie welcomed the RSA\u2019s efforts to get average waiting times back to 10 weeks, but said \u201cit is so disappointing that learners in Mulhuddart still have the longest wait at 22 weeks, that is almost six months\u201d. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s just to be invited to apply for the test which could take a further three to five weeks,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n An independent external review of the RSA by Indecon Economic Consultants last year recommended it be reformed by separating the authority into two agencies, one that is responsible for road safety and another for operational activities such as the NCT and driver testing.<\/p>\n However, the Government announced earlier this month it was not going ahead with the recommendation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A record number of learner drivers failed to attend for their driving test in October, with 1,089 \u201cno…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,615,111386,3775,61,60,1396,49783],"class_list":["post-214406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-dublin","tag-emer-currie","tag-fine-gael","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-limerick","tag-road-safety-authority"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}