More than 80 per cent of the learner drivers involved in fatal traffic collisions since 2016 were driving unaccompanied, new figures have shown.
Some 58 people have died across 57 separate collisions involving unaccompanied learner drivers since 2016, while overall, 69 fatal collisions involved learner drivers, meaning 12 (17 per cent) were driving accompanied.
The figures, derived from collision records held by An Garda Síochána, were provided by the RSA through a parliamentary question posed by former taoiseach Leo Varadkar and cover 2016 until September 29th of this year.
Of the 14 learner drivers involved in fatal collisions in 2023, 13 were unaccompanied.
Some 15 people were killed across the 14 collisions, six of whom were learner drivers.
The remaining fatalities included four pedestrians, three passengers, one motorcyclist and one pedal cyclist.
Briefing notes prepared by the RSA for outgoing Taoiseach Simon Harris in April noted it was an increase compared with the prior four years “when between three and five learner drivers were involved annually”.
Separate figures show a further 554 collisions involving learner drivers which resulted in 649 serious injuries, 415 of which (75 per cent) involved unaccompanied learner drivers.
The data, which was passed on to the Parc road safety group, does not include information on culpability, with the RSA saying: “The fact that a learner driver was involved in a collision does not infer that the learner driver was at fault in contributing to the collision.”
Furthermore, the collision database does not include information on whether a learner driver involved in a collision had taken a driving test in the past.
Susan Gray, founder of the Parc road safety campaign group, described the figures as “alarming”.
“It’s alarming to know just how bad the problem is in fatal and serious injury crashes, the high volume of learners that were involved, especially the 83 per cent of unaccompanied learners,” she said.
“Although we can’t apportion blame,” she said, “we have a situation where learners can renew their permits without ever doing a test.”
A loophole persists in that once learner drivers can prove they have applied for a test, they can renew their permit for a year and repeat this process indefinitely.
“We have to protect our learners, vulnerable and experienced drivers and the RSA must educate them properly and send out a clear message and enforce the laws, they must work with the gardaí on this,” she said.
While road fatality figures currently stand at 165 for this year, a decrease of five when compared with the same period in 2023, Donegal has experienced the highest number of road deaths since 2010 when 19 were killed.
Early on Sunday morning, 18-year-old Tiernan Doherty-Kelly became the 18th road fatality in Donegal so far this year.
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