Father's anger over seven month waiting time for driving licence tests in Limerick
A LIMERICK father has hit out at the driver retest wait times after his son failed the first time and must now wait a further eight weeks to take the test again.
The complainant - Mr Guilfoyle - told Limerick Live that his son David had been waiting 14 weeks for his initial test, which he undertook at the Road Safety Authority’s test centre in Castlemungret.
“This is a nightmare as he is in college in UL and I now have to collect and drop him every day. Not very green,” the concerned father exclaimed.
Mr Guilfoyle hit out at government for “making getting a driving test so difficult.” He claimed that there was only one tester at the centre in Mungret on the day.
He has asked if technology could be implemented as a means of remedying the major backlog.
“After the learner has completed the required lessons, in partnership with the insurance companies, a box could be fitted to monitor their driving until they pass,” he suggested.
Limerick Live understands that Limerick’s two test centres: located in Castlemungret and at Woodview, on the Old Cratloe Road, each have significant wait times.
The wait time for a first test in Castlemungret is four months, while Woodview is seven months. Retest times are generally between six to eight weeks, the RSA confirmed.
One veteran driving instructor based on the Mungret route said that the man in question should “think about why he failed in the first place and put that time to good use.”
He said that the RSA are in fact fully staffed and that the issue lies with a massive backlog still in place since Covid ground lessons and testing to a halt due to restrictions.
He also said that there are four testers in each of the Limerick driving centres and that the real issue lies with many learners, who are too eager to book their test following completion of the 12 compulsory lessons set out in the Essential Driving Training (EDT) programme.
“I am giving lessons to a young fella at the moment who went off and did six tests, despite the fact that I told him that he was nowhere near ready. He just kept going off and failing them,” he stated.