RSA proposals for learner drivers welcomed
Mary Clinton, A-CEART Road Safety Campaigner, said she welcomed "with varying degrees of satisfaction, frustration and sadness" proposals for the new graduated driver licensing system (GDLS) that the Road Safety Authority (RSA) has recommended.
The RSA proposals involve a number of different measures, including a speed-curbing device, compulsory lessons and parental supervision, that could be applied to drivers who hold learner permits. The recommendations will be referred to the government for consideration.
Eamonn Brown, road safety officer with the county council, said there is no guarantee that all of the recommendations will become law, "but we will certainly see a change in the driver license system."
"As a campaigner of six and a half years, I wholeheartedly welcome any measures that will help to reduce the constant carnage, especially of our younger generation, who are continually overly represented in the fatalities and injuries," Mary said.
The campaigner said she had a particular interest in the introduction of a speed curbing device that could be installed on the vehicles of drivers with learner permits. Mary said that she has had numerous meetings with the head of the RSA and representatives of the Department of Transport to call for a similar speed-governing device to be installed on the vehicles of learner/novice drivers, calling it "a major part of my campaign for the past four years."
Mary also called for such a device when she appeared in an August PrimeTime programme that addressed the driving culture in Donegal.
"So I welcome it with a small degree of satisfaction, but also with a degree of frustration that it took so long for the government to listen and sadness at the huge number of lives that have been lost to excessive speeding in those four years," Mary said.
She said her biggest concern was whether there would be extra garda appointed to enforce any new measures. "We are seriously short on Garda manpower/womanpower in the Donegal division," Mary said.
Eamonn Brown said the recommendations included proposals to be welcomed, and said he believed they would move driver preparation "from learning to pass a test to learning to drive.
"Even if it is a phased implementation, even if it takes time and some of this isn't implemented, we are still moving in the right direction," the council road safety officer said.
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Wednesday 08 February 2012
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