NI driving tests 'inconsistent'

Some 5,000 motorists in Northern Ireland may be passing their driving test each year without reaching the required standards, because of inconsistencies in the North's testing service, a new report has warned.

A mid-term review of Northern Ireland's Road Safety Strategy (2002-2012) by John Dowdall, head of the Audit Office and Comptroller and Auditor General, has found that drivers were marked more strictly when a "supervising examiner" was in the car, resulting in a 20 per cent lower pass rate.

This discrepancy "creates the potential for over 5,000 candidates to pass the test annually without meeting the required standards", Mr Dowdall said.

"Given the poor road safety record of young and novice drivers, such an outcome is likely to have had an adverse effect on Northern Ireland's road safety record," he said.

Northern Ireland is not alone in having inconsistent driving test pass rates. In June this year, the Republic's Comptroller and Auditor General John Purcell published a report on driver testing and discovered there was either a severe regional difference driving standards or there was a difference in the standard of the test. While the average pass rate in this State's 57 test centres in 2006 was 52 per cent, it ranges from 42 per cent in Co Carlow to 65 per cent in Buncrana, Co Donegal.

The review of the North's Road Safety Strategy published yesterday also shows that 16 to 24-year-olds account for a greater share of those killed and seriously hurt in crashes compared with similarly sized regions in Britain, suggesting that measures to protect these road users in the North need to be improved.

Northern Ireland is one of the few regions with a 45mph (72km/h) limit for all learner and recently qualified drivers. However, the report found no evidence that this restriction was reducing crashes for these drivers, and added there seemed to be little enforcement of it.

The Audit Office study said data from speed cameras at two major Belfast roads recorded "a speeding 'R' driver every two minutes" and said such levels of non-compliance call into question the effectiveness of the scheme.

Another problem identified by the study was a failure to penalise up to 40,000 speeding motorists a year because the centre that processes fixed penalties for motorists was unable to cope with the volume. This is despite the fact that speed cameras in the North are set to detect higher speeds than those recommended by the Association of Chief Police Offices in Great Britain.

Failing to prosecute so many drivers was resulting in a loss of up to £2.5 million sterling (€3.6 million) in fines revenue, it said. With speed the primary cause of crashes in the North, the authors of the report conclude that these problems with capacity, coupled with a lack of cameras, were "a significant matter of concern".

Random breath testing is not in place in the North, and the report says that fewer than three drivers out of 100 will be screened for drink driving each year - a level of enforcement that "may be insufficient to deter motorists".

The report recommends the proportion of drivers tested for alcohol be brought up to at least 10 per cent. It also said public consultations should be held on reducing the allowable blood alcohol limit from 80mg/100ml to 50mg/100ml.

This is the same level that the Road Safety Authority in the Republic is set to recommend in its soon-to-be-released strategy to cover 2007-2012.

While the Audit Office study notes a marked reduction in serious injuries and deaths on the North's roads since the strategy was published in 2002, it says the target of a 33 per cent reduction may have been too conservative, especially when other regions of the UK are working towards a 40 per cent reduction.

In 2005, 135 people were killed on roads in the North and 1,078 were seriously injured. The report estimates these crashes cost the North's economy £451 million (€668 million).