Driving on your own

newestUser

Hey guys,

am learning to drive at the moment. I'm on my first provisional licence.
Do I have to wait until I have either my second provisional licence, or a full licence, until I can drive on my own? Some people say that you can drive on your own with your first provisional licence, and that guards often turn a blind eye to it, but if you were in an accident, wouldn't your insurance claim be voided? Do you get a second provisional licence when the first provisional expires? This is a bit unclear to me. The first provisional licence is valid for two years. Is it only after this expires that you can apply for your second provisional licence?

Sorry for the dumb questions, any help is appreciated!

Mitch Connor

You must be accompanied by a fully qualified driver unless you are on you 2nd provisional, and you may only get that when your first expires.

The gardai do generally turn a blind eye to it (i was never caught for it) but that does not make it legal and you COULD get done for it.

As for being in a crash - it is a tough one. The insurance company would have to pay out if the crash was your fault, but they would be within their rights to claim the costs back off you. Also, I have heard that if you are in a crash and the other person is at fault, their insurance company may not have to pay out to you, as you were not driving to the terms of your licence.

Stark

newestUser wrote:

Do you get a second provisional licence when the first provisional expires? This is a bit unclear to me. The first provisional licence is valid for two years. Is it only after this expires that you can apply for your second provisional licence?

Yes. Well you can apply just before your first one expires, but the new licence will be forward dated to the expiry date of the first one.

I drove around on my own on my second provisional for about 9 months, L-plates on display all the time and I was never once asked for my licence when stopped at any Garda checkpoint.

Wishbone Ash

newestUser wrote:

am learning to drive at the moment. I'm on my first provisional licence.
Do I have to wait until I have either my second provisional licence, or a full licence, until I can drive on my own? Some people say that you can drive on your own with your first provisional licence

Information on this thread Here

WindSock

I'm on my 3rd provo but it has the wee numbers on it that says I must be accompanied. Why is this?

leeroybrown

boreds wrote:

I'm on my 3rd provo but it has the wee numbers on it that says I must be accompanied. Why is this?

This is because the law is strange in that it allows learners to drive on their second provisional but not on any other one.

They should change the law so that you can't drive alone on any provisional (without passing some form of skill test) and enforce it _but_ they'll have to introduce a proper driver education and testing system first.

MrPudding

leeroybrown wrote:

This is because the law is strange in that it allows learners to drive on their second provisional but not on any other one.

Lets face it, if you can't pass the test by the time you are on your 3rd provisional you really shouldn't be on the roads alone.

MrP

Wishbone Ash

leeroybrown wrote:

This is because the law is strange in that it allows learners to drive on their second provisional but not on any other one

The reason the a provisional licence holder is allowed to drive unaccompanied on their second licence is to encourage learner drivers to apply and pass the test as soon as possible rather than putting it on the long finger. Having to be accompanied again on the 3rd and subsequent licence acts as a sort of negative consequence of not passing the test.

AnTaoiseach

boreds wrote:

I'm on my 3rd provo but it has the wee numbers on it that says I must be accompanied. Why is this?

In order to get your third provisional you have to have either applied for or failed the driving test, so it's fair to assume that if you're on your third provisional you've failed the test, so you need to be supervised while driving.

WindSock

It's wierd. I failed my test before I got the second one, then on my second one, I left the country for four years and it had expired. Now my new one says I cant. Ah well I won't get too confused.

Wishbone Ash

boreds wrote:

It's wierd. I failed my test before I got the second one, then on my second one, I left the country for four years and it had expired. Now my new one says I cant. Ah well I won't get too confused.

If you have let your provisional licence expire by 5 years or more you go back to square one again. You are effectively on you 'first' licence again (AFAIK).

SeanW

MrPudding wrote:

Lets face it, if you can't pass the test by the time you are on your 3rd provisional you really shouldn't be on the roads alone.

MrP

What if you didn't start driving until your 2nd provisional was almost expired?

bonkey

SeanW wrote:

What if you didn't start driving until your 2nd provisional was almost expired?

Then you shouldn't be on the roads alone.

jhegarty

bonkey wrote:

Then you shouldn't be on the roads alone.

But the law says you can be until the second expires...

bonkey

I said shouldn't, not aren't legally permitted.

vibe666

I've been living in Ireland for nearly 7 years now and I am still totally baffled that any provisional licence holder at all can get in a car on their own, regardless of how long they have been learning to drive, or not as the case often is.

any person i tell this to who isn't from here thinks I'm joking when I tell them that not only is it allowed on a second provisional, but that nobody really cares or checks (inc. the garda) what provisional you are on when you are out on the road.

i know a lad who at 20 was driving around (on a daily basis) in his parents 2.7l turbo diesel 4x4 unaccompanied on his provisional without even bothering with L plates because they weren't cool.

i've seen an 07 S class merc with L plates and someone driving on their own, as well as all sorts of other new cars and it is ridiculous that this is allowed to happen. if it happened pretty much anywhere else in europe you would most likely be banned from driving.

Wishbone Ash

vibe666 wrote:

i've seen an 07 S class merc with L plates and someone driving on their own

1. Perhaps the car is also driven by a person on a provisional licence. The driver you saw may have a full licence.
2. The driver may be on a second provisional licence and are therefore legally permitted to drive unaccompanied.
3. The driver may have held a provisional licence prior to 12th August 1985 and there is exempt from the accompanied rule.

vib666 wrote:

as well as all sorts of other new cars and it is ridiculous that this is allowed to happen

Are you suggesting the learner drivers should not be allowed to drive new cars?

bonkey

Wishbone Ash wrote:

1. Perhaps the car is also driven by a person on a provisional licence. The driver you saw may have a full licence.

And in Europe that would be considered unacceptable. I was looked at strangely when I commented that I had never seen magnetic L-plates before. The first response was "and what do they do in Ireland when its not the learner driving the car[/i]??? They couldn't believe that its acceptable for a non-learner to drive with the plates still on.

When my instructor drives up to meet me for a lesson (if I'm the first lesson of the day) , she steps out of the car and puts the plates on. If I'm the last lesson of the day, she removes the plates before driving the 50m to the parking house where the car is parked overnight. Its just not done.

2. The driver may be on a second provisional licence and are therefore legally permitted to drive unaccompanied.

And as vibe said...in (mainland) Europe, people will look at you trying to figure out if they're having you on when you tell them that.

My driving instructor thought I was joking when I told her about waiting-list times for tests in Ireland.

She was convinced I was having her on when I told her about the second-provisional-unaccompanied and the occasional amnesty that has been had....

3. The driver may have held a provisional licence prior to 12th August 1985 and there is exempt from the accompanied rule.

...such as that one.

Here in Switzerland, as far as I know, I have a maximum of 3 years. If I don't pass my test in that time, I can't get another learner's license for something like 5 or 10 years....and only then when I start from scratch all over again (i.e. retake the theory exams etc.)

And at no time until I have my license can I drive unaccompanied.

Are you suggesting the learner drivers should not be allowed to drive new cars?

No-one should be allowed drive any car with L-plates unaccompanied. Not learners, not driving instructors...no-one.

I accept thats not how it works in Ireland, but that doesn't stop it from being crazy.

vibe666

couldn't have said it better myself bonkey.

the person I saw driving the S class was most certainly NOT an experienced driver at all simply by the way she was driving it and she had no right being behind the wheel of the thing.

a car is potentially a powerful weapon in inexperienced hands and a large very powerful car is many times more so.

it takes YEARS to learn how to handle a car properly and anyone who thinks they can just get in a powerful car with little or no experience other than gran tourismo on their playstaion will be sorely mistaken and is many more times likely to kill someone due to their inexperience than someone with the experience to know how to handle such a machine.

the driving laws and tests in Ireland are totally f*cked. ineffective, insufficient and very much out of date. something that is very evident when I drive to and from work every day in a long line of cars driving a few feet from each other with idiots cutting in left right and centre where there is obviously no space to do so.

has anyone here even heard of the 2 second rule?

bonkey

vibe666 wrote:

has anyone here even heard of the 2 second rule?

Thats to do with the amount of space you leave in front of you to piss off the guy behind in 2 seconds, or to allow someone to cut in front of you in 2 seconds....right???

Stark

If a person's not gone within 2 seconds of the light going green, you start beeping at them. Half the time if it's wet or if it's a learner in front

vibe666

bonkey wrote:

Thats to do with the amount of space you leave in front of you to piss off the guy behind in 2 seconds, or to allow someone to cut in front of you in 2 seconds....right???

Stark wrote:

If a person's not gone within 2 seconds of the light going green, you start beeping at them. Half the time if it's wet or if it's a learner in front

both very valid ideas.

or the amount of time you spend deciding how you are going to kill the person in front of you who is doing 30km below the speed limit who then jams on his breaks when he sees the white markings on the road for a speed camera he's already on top of.

Seinas

Stark wrote:

If a person's not gone within 2 seconds of the light going green, you start beeping at them. Half the time if it's wet or if it's a learner in front

oh god i was at traffic lights in Cork city centre yesterday, didnt realise they were green until someone beeped and a Punto was up on the kerb on the right trying to overtake me to turn right.... jeeez :eek: city driving just is not for me... it will take alot of getting used to... i was constantly changing lanes, did two u-turns, went through red lights.. etc etc etc :rolleyes:

it might not have been as bad if i had a full licenced driver with me

I've been living in Ireland for nearly 7 years now and I am still totally baffled that any provisional licence holder at all can get in a car on their own, regardless of how long they have been learning to drive, or not as the case often is.

Me neither. It's bizarre. Who cares what provisional it is? 'Second provisional' means nothing - the person has not passed their test so why are they allowed to drive alone? I can't believe this is allowed in this day and age. I live in the North and have to be accompanied until I pass my test, which is the way it should be. It's so dangerous to have people who haven't even done a test driving around. It puts me off driving myself.