Irish drivers don’t have much consideration for learners, according to a survey by tyres maker Semperit, writes Brian Byrne.
And they forget that when they were drivers themselves, they felt very intimidated by the more experienced drivers around them. So seven in ten said.
Bottom line, we with our full licences don’t come across as nice people. And Semperit Ireland’s Paddy Murphy is appealing to us to have a bit more cop.
The survey found that three in ten of us consider learner drivers ’just about bearable’ as long as they don’t get in our road.
Four in ten felt learners don’t get the ’basics of driving’ right. Stalling in traffic, not indicating for turns, sloppy lane discipline. Listen, how many of us long-term full-licence drivers do all these things too?
Almost half of respondents said they’ll do their best to get past a learner as quickly as possible. And 8 percent admitted they had driven recklessly in the past to do so.
Semperit’s Murphy says he’s ’dismayed’ by the findings.
So are we. Look, we all have to learn everything we do, whether it’s nappy training or riding a rocket to space. For those and everything in between, there’s a need for patience from those of us who have learned already.
If those before us hadn't had that patience, none of us would ever have got the hang of even not messing our pants.
Cool the anti-L attitude, guys. That was you once. And smelly too.
