Driving to disaster?

Do you know the Rules Of The Road? If you are a driver, you should. Indeed, before you ever get behind the steering wheel of a car, you are required to undergo an examination, the Driver Theory Test, which is designed to test your knowledge of those rules and more besides.
So where do you go to find out about these rules?
Easy. The Department of the Environment – which has traditionally had responsibility for this area – publishes a book which is called The Rules of the Road. So the average 17-year-old can study this – and know everything that needs to be known before setting off on the great adventure that is driving in the modern era.
Well, that’s what Hot Press thought – until we had a closer look. What we discovered is that in a number of important respects, the official Rules of the Road guide is seriously misleading. In fact, if someone based their answers in the Driver Theory Test on the information provided in the Rules of the Road then they would be likely to fail.
DRIVERS BADLY MISLED
What first struck us as odd was the picture of Brendan Howlin at the front of the book, as if the Labour man was still Minister for the Environment. A closer look revealed that the book was copyright 1992, had first been printed in 1995, and that it had been reprinted for the 22nd time in November 2005. And yet no attempt had been made to update it, even if only by inserting a picture of the 2005 Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche – or indeed any of the other Ministers who have been through the department in recent years.
Thus, the clear impression given to the average 17-year-old getting the booklet would be that Brendan Howlin is still in situ. Now, you could argue that this is cosmetic stuff. However, a look through the book reveals that it is emblemmatic of a far deeper malaise. The level of official neglect is quite staggering.
It is also impossible to understand. Road safety has been one of the major issues of public concern over the past five years and more. The increase in the number of deaths on the road in 2006 to date, compared to the same period in 2005, has been a source of constant headlines. New anti-drink driving measures have ben introduced. The penalty points systen has been ratcheted up and complicated in a way that smacks of panic.
And yet, despite all of this huffing and puffing, the most fundamental document available to people planning to drive for the first time has been left hopelessly out of date – as a result of which it is thoroughly misleading. The Minister for the Environment, in other words, is responsible for a document that has been reprinted 21 times but hasn’t been updated in the last 11 ( and perhaps 14) years. Unbelievable.
The most serious failing in the current Rules of the Road is its section on speed. According to the official government publication “a general speed limit of 60mph applies to all roads not subject to a lower limit,” a statement which obviously makes no reference to the speed limit now being in kilometres or to the fact that some roads will be subject to a higher limit.
In fact, all of the references to speed in the Rules of the Road are expressed in miles. They are wrong, misleading and out-of-date. The section on motorway speed limits states that the maximum speed limit for these roads is 70mph – is the equivalent of 112 kilometres per hour. In fact, the legal motorway limit is 120km/h. The general urban limit is given as 30mph, rather than 50kmph. And so on.
The effect of all of this can only be to confuse young learner drivers, and to bring the entire process into disrepute. What happens if a 17 year old goes for the Driver Theory Test and gives the old speed limits, expressed in miles per hour, in answer to a question?
And what kind of inertia is behind a situation where the Rules of the Road, has not been updated since 1995, when this has been a period of unprecedented change in the way in which drivers and driving are regulated. Surely it reflects a level of contempt for new drivers that they are so badly misled by a government department?
There is nothing in the Rules of the Road about the penalty points system.
There is nothing in the rules of the road about clamping.
There is nothing in the rules of the road that reflects the current thinking in relation to driving under the influence of alcohol or other substances.
There is nothing in the Rules of the Road about NCT tests.
In short, the document is a shambles and it is a disgrace that it is still being supplied to learner drivers – or to anyone else for that matter.
And then, there’s the Driver Theory Test.
OUTRAGEOUSLY OBVIOUS
Since the introduction of the Driver Theory Test in 2001, those hoping to obtain a provisional driving licence here have been financially exploited and misled. Like the Rules of the Road booklet, the official Driver Theory Test book contains information that is neither adequate nor up to date enough to sufficiently prepare someone to drive on our roads for the first time.
First, however, let’s take a look at the price. With such a captive market every year, this is a publishing no brainer. To prepare for the test you can either buy a CD ROM or the 230 page book that is unlikely to cost more than €2 a copy to print. So why are people being charged such an excessive price for it? The CD ROM costs €14.99 from booksellers and the book has a standard retail price of €16.49. However if you order the book direct from the Driver Theory Test website you will be charged €19.99 suggesting that the publishers, Prometric Ireland, are making a huge profit on direct sales. It is near enough to a 1000% mark-up – an example of rip off Ireland at its worst.
Next the content: herein is contained the kind of stuff that has people chortling into their soup. The department needs to be careful: they might be sued if someone dies laughing at the sheer absurdity of it.
According to an official governmental website, the Driver Theory Test was introduced to supplement the practical driving test because “EU legislation governing this area now requires that citizens undergo a practical test of their knowledge of the rules of the road and motoring legislation.”
But there is a huge gap here between theory and practice. To say that the Driver Theory Test book contains numerous questions that are of absolutely no value or relevance to someone who is trying to get their L Plates is to understate it greatly. The license being sought by 95% of people is to drive a car – so why are they likely to be tested about their knowledge of tractors? Or trucks for that matter?
As well as containing questions that are simply irrelevant to those looking to learn how to drive a car, there are several questions the answers to which are so outrageously obvious that their inclusion is worse than completely worthless. Again, the entire process is brought into disrepute (See Panel).
There are also questions with answers that are simply incorrect because they haven’t been updated since the test was introduced. We are constantly told that one of the main causes of road deaths in this country is people speeding – and yet in the Driver Theory Test book you are asked what the on-the-spot fine for exceeding the speed limit is and the answer is given as £50 with no mention of the euro equivalent anywhere.
When the contract for the delivery of the driver theory testing service was put to tender in 2000, it was awarded to Prometric Thomson Learning, a division of the Thomson Corporation in the US. The Driver Theory Test book for Ireland is published by Prometric Ireland Ltd, which was set up to operate the testing service here in 2001. However, the book itself is under license from the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, whose department is responsible for writing and compiling the questions. There is a further twist in the tale because, although licensed by the Minister for the Environment, it is the Department of Transport that is now responsible for the book but, despite repeated requests from Hotpress, they declined to comment on the issue.
Although Martin Cullen, the Minister for Transport, published a draft version of a new Rules of the Road on the official department of transport website in May, there hasn’t yet been a date set for its introduction. Meanwhile, people are told to continue to refer to the existing booklet which is so out of date that it features a foreword by Brendan Howlin when he was Minister of the Environment in 1995.
Lord help us. The lunatics really have taken over the asylum…