Ireland is the only state in the EU - or the developed world - with no compulsory system of training and registration for driving instructors. Barry McCall is dumbfounded.
Fancy a new career? Business not going too well at the moment? Got a clean driving licence? Why not become a driving instructor? All you need is a car, a set of L-plates and the appropriate insurance and you too can become a driving instructor.
This is the bizarre situation in which we find ourselves as we enter a new era of provisional licence-holders no longer being allowed to drive unaccompanied on Irish roads.
In Britain and the rest of the EU driving instructors must undergo formal training followed by stringent exams to test their abilities not only as drivers but as teachers.
Here the sector remains unregulated and at least one third of instructors in this country have no formal qualifications whatsoever - a sobering thought for many of the provisional licence-holders now looking to get tuition in order to pass their tests.
"The law currently allows anyone with a full licence to get out there and set themselves up as a driving instructor," says Des Cummins, executive chairman of the Driving Instructor Register of Ireland (DIR). "Members of the public have absolutely no redress with unregistered driving instructors, so these people get away with imparting their own style of driving."
The DIR was set up in 1991 with a view to establishing formal, compulsory standards for driving instructors in Ireland. In 1996 it began testing its own members and now has almost 1,000 instructors registered. It's estimated that there are about 1,500 driving instructors operating in Ireland at present.
Registered DIR members must pass a rigorous three-part exam which comprises a written theory test, a test of the potential instructor's own driving, and an exam to test their abilities as an instructor. This third section is probably the most important.
"However well someone may be able to handle a car themselves this is not enough in itself," says Cummins. "Being a good driver doesn't necessarily mean that you could be a good instructor. You could be a very good driver and still fail our exam, simply because you can't impart your knowledge to your student."
The third part of the DIR test involves an examiner playing the role of a learner driver in two different situations - an absolute beginner and a more advanced driver possibly about to do the test. Failure in this section will mean that the potential instructor has to sit it again, possibly following further training.
The DIR itself does not offer training to members but recommends various bodies which can train instructors to its standards.
And the system does not end with the exam. "We also monitor our members," says Cummins. "This involves an examiner sitting in on one of their lessons from time to time. If they don't perform well we will recommend further training and, if they fail to improve their performance over a specified period, we will consider withdrawing their registration."
DIR standards are modelled on those in force in Britain.
All of this still leaves us with the unanswered question: why is there no mandatory system of training and monitoring in force in this country?
The DIR has been agitating and lobbying for such a system since its establishment but with little success. "We applaud Minister Brennan for his steps in beginning the introduction of penalty points and closing the legal loophole allowing provisional licence holders to drive unaccompanied," says Des Cummins. "But much more must be done. The approach to road safety has so far included the 'three Es' - enforcement through the Gardai, encouragement through the National Safety Council and engineering through the NRA and the local authorities.
"What is now needed is a much greater emphasis on a fourth E - education. As in other European countries, there should be a single national body to examine driving instructors . . . this will help to raise standards greatly."
According to Cummins, education of instructors has received a low priority for the same reason as driver education has. "The average life of a provisional licence in Ireland is now five years," he says. "People can get a licence, buy a car, get insured and drive away with almost no training. No other country in Europe is like this.
"This puts a very low emphasis and value on training and has turned instructors into 'test tippers' whose job is seen as helping people to pass a test rather than become good, safe drivers."
There are 400,000 provisional drivers on our roads at present. Most of them will be trying to pass their tests sooner rather than later thanks to the new regulations. The case for a national standard for driving instructors has never been greater.
IT'S not altogether surprising that Ireland is the only EU country without a formal mandatory system of driving instructor training and monitoring when our attitudes to driver education are analysed.
The driving test was introduced to Ireland only in 1964, having been part of the 1963 Road Traffic Act. Even then, the test only applied to new drivers. All others were allowed to hold on to their full licences despite never having passed a test and probably never having had a single lesson.
This led to a glut of applications for licences in advance of the introduction of the test, many of them from people who had never sat in a car before. This rush was facilitated by the delay in the introduction of the test.
This leaves us in the situation that today many fully licensed drivers over the age of 55 never sat the test. Indeed, a number of them may even be driving instructors.
While having a test was certainly better than not having one, the system was never properly resourced. Today 167 testers operate around the country, while just two years ago there were fewer than 70 - at the time waiting lists for tests grew as long as 14 months at one centre. This facilitated a system in which a blind eye was turned to the numbers of provisional licence holders driving unaccompanied on Irish roads. Indeed, even when accompanied, a provisional licence holder should not drive on a motorway but this is rarely if every enforced.
Perhaps the nadir of the State's performance in relation to driver education came in 1979 when the then environment minister Sylvester Barrett came up with yet another "Irish solution to an Irish problem". Instead of increasing the number of testers and working to establish better standards of tuition to ensure a higher test pass rate, he simply issued full licences to every holder of a second provisional licence in the country. At a stroke of a pen he gave 30,000 full licences to drivers who had not passed any form of test and who may have never had any tuition.
This was to be a temporary measure to allow for the upgrading of the testing service. Nothing happened, test queues got longer and the number of provisionally licensed drivers on the roads has been allowed to grow to almost 400,000.
Transport minister Seamus Brennan has had a good start - but only time will tell if he will grasp the nettle of driver and instructor education and bring us in line with the rest of the civilised world.