LEARNER DRIVERS SHOULD have to learn how to drive on motorways before they are qualified, the Road Safety Authority’s (RSA) chief operations officer has told the Oireachtas Committee on Transport. 

Representatives from the RSA and Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) are both appearing before the committee to discuss recent road safety incidents on motorways.

It follows a number of incidents of teenagers driving the wrong way on motorways and uploading it to social media in recent months, including the fatal crash on the M9 in August.

Five teenagers in a car driving the wrong way down the motorway were killed when their car hit a family driving to Dublin Airport, seriously injuring three sisters and their seven-year-old nephew.

Representatives from TikTok, Meta and Google will appear before the Oireachtas Media Committee this afternoon to discuss online content promoting criminal activity

TII’s director of network management Pat Maher told TDs and senators that an average of 77 wrong-way driving incidents were recorded every year between 2021 and 2025.

However, he said it is important to recognise that the actual figure is likely to be higher, as not every incident is reported. 

Between 2023 and 2025, there were three collisions on motorways where one of the cars was driving the wrong way. Two of these were fatal collisions, while one was serious.

There have been seven fatalities on Irish roads as a result of wrong-way driving so far this year. 

Maher said that while engineering measures can help prevent and detect wrong-way driving, these measures “will not deter a driver who is intent on driving the wrong way”.

“Intentional wrong-way driving is a societal problem and is not one that can be solved by engineering and technological solutions alone,” he said, adding that road traffic enforcement and appropriate deterrents in the justice system are also needed.

The RSA’s chief executive Sam Waide told the committee that the number of people killed in crashes on the roads rose by 13% this year compared to the same time last year, with 139 fatalities up to 23 September.

More than 1,000 people have also been seriously injured in road traffic collisions so far this year.

Driving tests

Sinn Féin senator Joanne Collins asked if the representatives could see motorways being part of the driving test going forward, or whether a certain amount of the required 12 driving lessons would incorporate motorways. 

She said she often observes people driving too slowly on motorways and others getting frustrated, adding that “frustration leads to accidents”. 

The RSA’s chief operations officer Brendan Walsh said the approved driving instructor programme includes an element around entering and exiting a motorway, though it is not a practical part of the test. 

“However, I absolutely share your view,” he said. 

Walsh said the RSA is working very closely with the Department of Transport in looking at the curriculum.

He said that they have an important meeting with colleagues from Queensland University next month, who have carried out a study around inputting “what we should look at as we design new curriculum for the future”. 

I absolutely believe, personally, that motorway driving must be part of it.

Walsh told the committee that in Germany, learner drivers must drive for four hours on a motorway under guidance before they sit their driving test.

“I believe we need to look at something like that. That will be an output of the sessions we have upcoming,” he said.

“We’ll make recommendations to our colleagues in the Department of Transport and then I believe we will be pushing an open door in relation to those changes.”

It comes after the road safety minister Seán Canney called for driving tests in Ireland to include training on motorways, even if that training is in a simulator.

He told Newstalk’s Today with Claire Byrne that “it’s a reasonable thing to look at” but acknowledged that there are areas that don’t have a motorway which will make it “very hard to test people on the motorway”.

“But at least as part of the training, they would have some experience, be it actual experience on the motorway or be it in a simulation,” he said. 

Collins also asked if there was a way that bollards could be installed on slip roads that would raise if a car was detected driving the wrong way. 

‘No single silver bullet solution’

Maher said that research on this had taken place, but that it is not seen as feasible because it would impact emergency vehicles who may have to drive the wrong way to get to an incident. 

He said a number of surveys had been carried out of measures being deployed in different countries. Common measures include enhanced signage and road markers at exits and the installation of detection systems linked to warning signs.

TII has installed signage on all interchange offslips on motorways to inform drivers that they are driving the wrong way, he said. 

He cited a number of measures that had been trialled, including radar detection technology at 12 junctions on the N18 and the M7 that detects and notifies drivers.

While these produced “some positive results”, the technology was not yet “sufficiently mature to be scalable across the motorway network”, he added. 

Maher said there is “no one single silver bullet solution” to the problem of wrong-way driving from a tech perspective and pointed out that Ireland is no different to other countries in Europe in trying to tackle it.

“In the last weeks and month, we have spoken to colleagues in Austria, who would be highlighted as one of better countries for their efforts in dealing with same problem we have.”

He said the deployment of improved in-vehicle communication technology that would immediately transmit messages and alerts to wrong-way drivers could take “perhaps 10, perhaps 15 years”, as only around 5% of the current fleet has the required tech currently. 

Asked by Fine Gael TD Emer Currie if TII had considered mobile phone alerts, Maher said a European pilot programme had trialled sending messages to a small sample fleet of vehicles as well as mobile phone apps, which “successfully proved capability”. 

He added that TII would have to determine if it could do the same, but that “phone alerts potentially is a means of communicating with people, yes.”

’2030 target still achievable’

Committee chair Michael Murphy asked the RSA if the current road safety strategy target of halving deaths and serious injuries on Irish roads to no more than 72 by 2030 is still achievable. 

Chief executive Sam Waide conceded that the target was ambitious. “Are they achievable? Yes. How? Greater enforcement, greater education and awareness, and greater engineering.”

He said funding and resourcing need to support all of the agencies involved.

Asked if the target was achievable with the current strength of the Garda roads policing unit, Waide said the RSA “have always been supportive of An Garda Síochána” and advocated that they be given sufficient resources. 

Last week, gardaí who pursued the car driving the wrong way on the M9 were found to have acted appropriately by a Fiosrú watchdog investigation.

Garda representative organisations have called for increased legal protections against unintended consequences during chases, while also highlighting that no specific pursuit training currently exists.

No gardaí are currently trained in pursuit driving, a recent Oireachtas Justice Committee heard from both the Garda Representative Association and the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors.

The government and garda management have committed to introducing training from this year, and instructors would first be schooled by UK police, but just six gardaí are expected to receive the training by the end of the year.