One in Six Irish Drivers Has Not Passed Test

One in six of Ireland's motorists has never passed a driving test, partly because many exploit a dodge enabling them to use a provisional licence for years, Dublin's transport officials have warned.

The republic's troubled relationship with its cars and roads has moved rapidly up the political agenda but the government has failed to remove the massive backlog of those awaiting tests that they do not have to pass. The law merely requires that L-drivers apply for a provisional licence which they can repeatedly renew.

As many as 20,000 people every year fail to turn up for the test, the Road Safety Authority has revealed.

"This is a scam," Des Cummins, the head of the driving instructors register for Ireland, told a Dublin newspaper this week. "Drivers can get as many [provisional] licences as they want."

The number of Irish drivers on provisional licences has risen to 404,607, the government has confirmed, representing 17% of all licence holders.

In an increasingly affluent society with relatively poor public transport there is a heavy reliance on cars. The latest casualty figures show that 10 people per 100,000 of the population are killed on the republic's roads - an annual fatality rate double that of Holland, Sweden and Britain.

So far this year 254 people have died on Irish roads.

Whether the high proportion of learner drivers is to blame is less certain. "Inexperienced drivers, including those on provisional licences, and those who have passed their test in the past two or three years, are among those [aged 16-24] most at risk," said Noel Brett, chief executive of the Road Safety Authority.