IRHA accuses RSA of presiding over road safety crisis

The Irish Road Haulage Association (IRHA) has accused the Road Safety Authority of presiding over a “road safety crisis” on the back on figures, which show there were almost 400,000 learner permit drivers driver on our roads at the end of September. New figures released from the Road Safety Authority (RSA) reveal that there were 394,128 learner permit holders now on our roads in Ireland at the end of September. That is an increase of 12,257 learner drivers on our roads since March of this year, just six months ago. President of the Irish Road Haulage Association, Ger Hyland, has described the situation “as a road safety crisis.” The extraordinary number of learner drivers on Irish roads comes at a time when road deaths are spiralling. As of November 20th, 2025, Garda figures show that 158 people had lost their lives on Irish roads, nine more deaths than on the same day in 2024. IRHA President Ger Hyland says the levels of inexperienced drivers on our roads “beggars belief” at a time when “millions of taxpayers euros are being pumped into the RSA to clear a chronic backlog of driver testing across all licence categories” Hyland warned that the surge in learner drivers on our roads poses a direct threat to Irish road safety. “To have 394,128 inexperienced drivers on our roads is a testament to the failure of the Road Safety Authority and their mismanagement of our driver testing system. It is a mess and not getting any better, despite all the creative accounting that the RSA are doing with driver testing figures,” Mr Hyland said. Hyland pointed to Garda figures which show that 2,754 fixed charge notices were issued nationally by Gardaí in the first three months of 2025 alone to learner drivers caught driving without a fully licensed driver. That is an increase of 9.5% on the same period in 2024. Hyland said that our roads have become dangerous places for his members and accused the RSA of not getting a handle on what is a crisis for Irish road safety. Hyland called on media to “robustly interrogate the real story behind the vast numbers of Irish people waiting for car, truck and bus driving tests.” and said the IRHA no longer has confidence in the data provided by the RSA “How are we supposed to accept that around 10% of Ireland’s driving public are on some kind of learner permit? We have been asking questions of the RSA for the past 12 months on behalf of our members and the driving public. The RSA have ducked, dived and dodged accountability and transparency and it is high time that Minister Sean Canney called them to task,” he concluded.