Learner drivers on the road to full licence number 250,000

There are approximately 2.5 million drivers on Ireland's roads, of whom some 250,000 are learner drivers.

In recent years, the number of learner drivers involved in fatal crashes has declined, as has the ratio of learner drivers involved in such crashes relative to qualified drivers – that is, those with full driving licences.

In 2005 and 2006, for instance, learner drivers were involved in 9.9 per cent and 11.9 per cent of fatal crashes respectively each year, giving an average of 10.4 per cent – very close to the 10 per cent ratio between learner drivers to qualified drivers.

By 2013, however, the percentage of learner drivers involved in fatal crashes had fallen to 2.8 per cent of all such crashes.

There has been a dramatic fall also in the number of unaccompanied learner drivers involved in fatal crashes, that is, the number of learner drivers who did not have a full-licence holder with them in the vehicle when the crash occurred.

The number has fallen from 33 in 2005 to five in 2013.

Equally, the number of learner drivers who were accompanied by a qualified driver when they were involved in a fatal collision has fallen from nine in 2005 to just one in 2013.

Improvements revealed in those statistics may be traced directly to compliance with, and enforcement of, tightened laws governing new drivers in recent years, including the introduction of mandatory driving lessons for learner drivers, which came in in 2010.

There is no such thing anymore as a provisional licence, for instance. There is now only the Learner Permit. The distinction is seen as important: there is only one type of driving licence and it is the driving licence, not a provisional, or “kind-of”, driving licence.

The learner driver therefore does not have a driving licence of any sort, provisional or otherwise. They have a Learner Permit, which is an explicit statement that they are learning to drive, under a temporary permission.

Twelve lessons

A holder of a Learner Permit must take 12 driving lessons with an approved instructor before applying for a driving test to get a driving licence and they may not apply for a driving test within the first six months of holding their Learner Permit. This gives the learner a minimum period within which they can take their 12 lessons.

If a driving test is passed, the new driver will have a driving licence but will be classified as a novice driver for two years and must, for those two years, display an N sign on their vehicle.

Learner drivers must also display an L sign on their vehicle. By law, such signs must be a red letter on a white background and must be 15cm square. Those learner drivers who trim their L or novice N signs to remove the white to make them, presumably, less visible, are breaking the law.

A learner driver arriving to take the driving test and displaying a molested L sign will be refused the test.

Learner drivers are also subject to a more stringent blood-alcohol threshold, should they choose to drink and drive. Learner drivers, and novice drivers as well, may not drive with a blood-alcohol reading about 20mg of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood.

This is, in effect, zero blood-alcohol. The level for fully licensed drivers is 50mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood.

The reason for applying the lower blood-alcohol threshold to novice drivers is that research shows that drivers who live with such a restriction for two years are more likely than not to adhere to a no drinking and driving approach thereafter.

Since August 2014, learner drivers who gain just seven penalty points will lose their permit, compared to qualified drivers who lose their licence after having 12 points imposed against them.

So far this year, to the end of October, more than 10,000 penalty points have been applied to learner and novice drivers. They include 6,148 points against learner drivers driving without a qualified driver being with them, 3,550 points for not displaying an L sign and 288 for not displaying an N sign.