David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)

The Bill has been criticised by consultants Farrell Grant Sparks for its limited functional remit in its report to the Department. The report called for centralised responsibility for all aspects of road safety, including vehicle and driver testing enforcement and road planning, within a road safety authority. This wider remit would offer a more focussed approach to limiting the causes of road accidents.

I hope action will be taken to reduce long waiting lists. Currently, more than 100,000 provisional licence holders are waiting to sit the test. The average waiting time is ten months and in some parts of the country it is 14 months. The waiting time in Ireland is far longer than in other European countries. The average waiting time in Northern Ireland is four weeks. A longer waiting time means a larger proportion of provisional licence holders on the road and high insurance premiums for these drivers. With a pass rate of approximately 50%, many young drivers are unfairly penalised for holding provisional licences when they may be competent drivers. This matter must be dealt with and we should have shorter waiting times. A provisional licence holder should not drive on the roads unless accompanied by a fully licensed driver. This is not happening in practice as shown by the figures. Waiting times should be shorter and provisional licence holders should be accompanied at all times by a fully licensed driver.

Once their test is completed, people consider themselves fully-fledged qualified drivers and think they can put the boot down. The Minister of State should consider the possibility of a plate with a "P" indicating probation driver being placed on a car for a period of six months after the test. This would show that the driver has just completed the test and can drive on his or her own. However, the newly qualified driver would know that if he or she went over the speed limit he or she would get increased penalty points and this would keep him or her in line somewhat. It is important because newly-qualified drivers are inclined to put the boot down.

There is a need to incorporate driving instruction in secondary schools, particularly transition year. Some people have mentioned having an area of land close to the school, such as a non-public road, for use in training young people to handle cars. This is important in terms of controlling standards. Theory and road safety should form a module in transition year, which is the time to do it. Most schools have a transition year programme. I am slow to suggest that schools can solve every one of society's problems and that we should overload them. However, this would be a welcome measure.

Along with the issue of driving standards is the matter of driving under the influence of drugs. Perhaps the Minister of State could let us know of the type of tests that indicate whether a person has taken a banned substance, such as cannabis or ecstasy, and is now behind the wheel. How is that currently tested and is it effective? What statistics exist? I ask for the Minister of State to take this issue seriously and am very interested in his response. Otherwise he can communicate the information to me privately in writing.

The Minister of State is a very good man when it comes to raising public awareness for all types of issue. Perhaps he will do so with regard to the issue of drivers getting tired behind the wheel and falling asleep late at night. Other countries have addressed this serious issue. There were a number of road accidents in my part of country recently, and it has been suggested that the driver fell asleep at the wheel, crashed the car and was killed. The Minister of State should raise awareness by way of television advertisements that tell people that if they feel drowsy while driving, they should not slap themselves to stay awake, turn on the radio or open the window. Rather they should pull over and put their head down, whether it is day or night. It can be very hard to stay awake in the early hours of the morning and the Minister of State should take this on board as a matter of urgency.

In many European countries not only does an individual have to pass a theory and written test, there is also a compulsory requirement to attend theory classes beforehand and undertake practical driving lessons with a qualified and registered instructor before a candidate can attempt a practical driving test. That should be built into this legislation; that a person would take, for example, ten lessons. Until a candidate passes a practical driving test it should not be legal for him or her to drive a car, except in the company of a professional driving instructor. The Government, in the national road safety strategy for 2004 to 2006, set a target of reducing road fatalities to less than 300 per annum. In 2004, 325 people lost their lives on the roads.

In addition to tackling speeding and drink driving, an effective means of reducing the number of fatalities on Irish roads is to engender a responsible attitude to driving in drivers from the beginning, by making a certain number of professional driving lessons mandatory before learner drivers are allowed to drive on the open road, even if accompanied by a licensed driver. Once these lessons have been successfully completed, learner drivers should be encouraged to apply for a driving test immediately. This would help to cut down on the number of provisional licenceholders on the road.

It has also been suggested that the size and power of cars driven by younger drivers should be controlled. Furthermore, perhaps the speed at which such cars can travel should also be controlled, so that they can only travel at a certain speed. It is possible to do this, I understand, by inserting a regulator into the engine of the car to control speed.

Unfortunately, figures from the National Roads Authority and the National Safety Council show that driver error was the cause of 81% of all crashes — both fatal and those resulting in injury — from 1997 to 2002. Male drivers aged between 18 and 24 represent the largest group of those drivers involved in crashes, at 24%. There are no figures, I understand — unless the Minister of State has them — to indicate how many of these drivers were provisional licenceholders. However, the NRA notes that, statistically, those aged between 17 and 24 are 7.7 times more likely to be involved in a fatal or serious injury collision. Given the age range, we should assume that a reasonable proportion of these drivers are provisional licenceholders or are, at least, less experienced drivers.

In Ireland, for every mile driven, a 17 year old male is seven times more likely to be involved in an accident than a middle aged man. Research carried out in the United Kingdom suggests that an 18 year old driver is three times as likely to be involved in an accident as a 48 year old. This trend is reflected in the road casualty statistics of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the United States of America, which shows that the younger the age limit for driving, the higher the proportion of casualties in the relevant age bracket. A larger proportion of those aged 17 are hurt or killed than those aged 18 years.

As I said earlier, the National Safety Council notes that the primary cause of death in single vehicle accidents is speeding. Younger males are more likely to take risks when driving than older, more experienced men. I spoke earlier about the need for practical instruction through professional and fully qualified driving instructors to deal with that issue. The fact that anyone can offer driving lessons is ludicrous and is an area that needs urgent attention.

It is not only young drivers who drive dangerously. Older drivers also drive dangerously and I urge the Minister to introduce advanced driving courses to address that problem. It must be remembered that while we talk about road deaths, there are also road injuries, in some cases horrific in nature. There are young, chronically ill people in hospitals and nursing homes whose lives have been ruined. Families are tragically affected by a member being injured, possibly badly, for life. This is something that we must not forget — the number of people who are injured. Perhaps the Minister of State would consider making known how many people are badly injured each year on the roads and not just the number of people killed. I wish the Minister of State well with this legislation, which is very important.

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