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THE AVERAGE NATIONAL waiting time to receive a driving test invitation has fallen to 16.3 weeks, according to the RSA.
While this is below the RSA’s projection for July it is still six weeks above its target of 10 weeks.
The RSA said this reduction is the result of “continued strong progress in reducing waiting times, as part of its ongoing Driving Test Action Plan”.
This plan includes extended testing hours and accelerated training of new testers.
As of the end of February, there were 144 permanent testers employed by the RSA.
The RSA previously told The Journal that this figure will reach 200 by November.
To further alleviate pressure, the RSA will open new driving test centres in “key areas” to bring the national total to 60 centres.
At the end of May, driving test waiting times stood at 22 weeks.
At the time, Brendan Walsh, Chief Operations Officer of the RSA, said that by July the average wait should be down to 18 weeks.
As of this week, that figure is 16.3 weeks, which the RSA said it has achieved “well ahead of earlier projections”.
The RSA is still over six weeks off its target of 10 weeks, but a spokesperson said it remains “firmly on track” to achieve this goal by September.
The spokesperson added that this will be the result of a “range of targeted measures implemented to increase capacity and improve efficiency”.
Commenting on this week’s update, Walsh described it as a “significant reduction in waiting times” and an “important milestone”.
“We are determined to continue this momentum through the summer and into autumn,” he added.
Meanwhile, the RSA is encouraging learner drivers to prepare thoroughly, arrive at their test fully ready, and “embrace the responsibility that comes with earning a full licence”.
Walsh said this will “not only increase the success rate but also contribute to the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the national testing system”.
So far this year, the national pass rate stands at 53%.
“While we know learners have waited patiently for a test,” said Walsh, “it is crucial to see the test as a critical step towards becoming a safe, confident, and independent driver.”
Walsh encourages students to practice regularly with their sponsor and to familiarise themselves with test requirements as set out in the RSA checklist.
He noted that some of the most common reasons that people fail their test include inadequate observation on moving off, at junctions, roundabouts, and changing lanes.
Other common reasons for failure include incorrect road positioning, a failure to anticipate the actions of other drivers, incorrect use of mirrors and signals, and inadequate progress at junctions and roundabouts.
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Excellent as always. The highlight of The Journal week.
I wonder how the learned professor would have visualised that great Irish expression “I will in me hole”?
@jamesdecay: or you will in your arse
@John Kelly: or even just ” I will, yah”
@John Kelly: or better still “The high hole of me arse”
@jamesdecay: I like to think he’d respond with “ask me bollix”…
Saw a poster for a play today called “colleen bawn”
@Ciarán FitzGerald: The Colleen Bawn by Dion Boucicault (what a name!). First produced in about 1870-80.
The sad fact is that Gaelic languages are, like Latin, fast becoming classical ones.
As anything modern arrives, a new word in Irish languages, based on English, needs to be invented. For example, while we had Irish for wheel (‘roth’), when the bicycle and motor car arrived, there were no Irish words for them… So we invented ‘Rothar’ and ‘Gluaisteán’, both of which have evolved into Hiberno/English as ‘bicical’ and carr mótar.
Darragh wrote an interesting article a few weeks ago on Irish for computer terms.
Béider go mór fada me a dhéin mé ar mo ‘vice-ical’. (“It might be better I ger’ on me bike”).
@Canny Jem: Car is a word of Celtic origin, so no harm in using that.
The tyranny of the Irish Education beat Gaeilge into us on one side and bet our local Hiberno English dialects out of them on the other
@Joe Clery:
Can’t say that was my experience.
The teachers we had over the years had every Hib dialect going – staff rooms must have been like Babel!
@Joe Clery: I agree with Michael Kavanagh. Not my experience either. Despite being born in Dublin of my Dubliner parents not having but a smattering of Irish, I learned Irish quickly in infants school and developed it more in Primary School. It was not an all-Irish school, like Coláiste Mhuire in Parnell Sq was.
I did most of my school exams in Irish (except for Physics, Chemistry, English, French and Latin classes) and spoke it very fluently with my fellow school pals daily in the schoolyard, on the sports fields and even on the streets. My highest score in Leaving Cert was in Irish, very nearly failed English, French and Latin!
My wife was also a Dubliner, a fluent Irish speaker and her parents didn’t have much Irish either. We often spoke in Irish abroad on holidays together, like having a secret code language amongst foreign people.
Sadly, after school I had little use for Irish and am now rusty on it, yet still can follow the news in Irish on radio and tv. BTW, TG4 has some of the best programmes that have English subtitles for “Engerlanders”.
What about that God-awful translation of ‘go n’eirigh an bothar leat’ to ‘ may the road rise with you’ so beloved of souvenir shops in places like Killarney?
Just wait another 5 years or so for the next batch of immigrants planned coming from Sudan and Somalia. We will be hearing even less Hiberno English.
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