Lottery of driving test results must end!

Here is a press release I am sending out on the huge differences between driving test results in Ireland. Amazingly Westport has the lowest pass rate in the country at 41%. There are also huge differences between the results of tests done by the Road Safety Authority and those conducted by the Private company SGS (the NCT people) under contract from the Dept of Transport.

It is a disgraceful situation and it needs fixing imediately. I think the people of Westport are being hard done by SGS in Westport especially when you compare it with SGS pass rate of 81% in Nenagh! Read on.

Labour’s Cllr Keith Martin has condemned what he calls the “lottery” system in relation to the pass rates for driving tests in Ireland which mean that currently Westport has the lowest rate of driving tests passes in Ireland.

Driving tests in Ireland are conducted either by the Road Safety Authority RSA or SGS Ireland the company that has been contracted by the Department of Transport to undertake driving tests on their behalf. SGS also run the NCT car testing service for the Government. The company established the National Car Testing Service in 1999 following the award of a ten year contract by the Department of the Environment.

Cllr Keith Martin says “The pass rate for driving tests in Westport, which is run by SGS and is based in their NCT test centre on the Lodge Road, is the lowest in the country at 41%. The national average for the SGS run tests is 62% the national average to tests run by the RSA is 52%. This is unacceptable as there is such a variance in the results. No one expects the same results but there is such a huge variance between Westport with 41% and 83% in Nenagh. The same standards must apply across the board and I fear that Westport’s drivers who are eager to gain a full licence are losing out in this lottery system.”

“New figures released by the Road Safety Authority (RSA) for 2007 indicate that there are still huge regional variations in the driving test pass rates around the country and between RSA and SGS test centres in the same area.”

“For example in some towns there are also strikingly different pass rates between the RSA and the SGS centre in the same location. In Nenagh, for example, the RSA centre has a 43% pass rate and the SGS centre an 83% pass rate. In Carlow pass rates are 42% (RSA) and 57% (SGS), in Cavan 48% (RSA) and 68% (SGS), in Dundalk 56% (RSA) and 67% (SGS), in Monaghan 59% (RSA) and 76% (SGS), in Naas 50% (RSA) and 65% (SGS) and in Waterford 51% (RSA) and 69% (SGS).

“Highly variable driver testing pass rates were raised by the Comptroller and Auditor General at the Public Accounts Committee in a Value for Money Report last summer. But these latest figures continue to show what appears to be persistent and significant differences in pass rates around the country and at different test centres. Getting drivers quickly through the provisional driving and new learner driver system and on to full licences must remain a critical objective. However, there cannot be a system where it is almost a lottery as to whether a driver passes their test or not, depending on where they live and at which test centre they attend” concluded Cllr Martin.