So after years of putting it off I finally decided back in June to try and sit my driving test and get a full license. Knowing the horrendous wait times for getting a driving test date in Ireland I figured that if I applied for my driving test at around the same time my provisional arrived I would be happily doing my test by December at the latest.
Roll on December and over a hundred euros down and still not a word from The Road Safety Authority (RSA) who manage all the test applications. No problems I say as I was expecting a really long wait time anyways despite the government's assurance that driving test wait times around the country were to be reduced to an average of 10 weeks. While browsing through a local discussion forum today I noticed a little thread about rumours over the fact that the Tallaght test centre has been closed. Then it struck me. That's the friggin test centre that I applied for!!!
So, I ring up RSA to enquire whether this rumour was true or not. I was told that it was indeed true (nice of them to let the applicants know!). Was told that they referred all the tallaght applicants to a third party testing company called SGS out in Fonthill instead (I have no idea where that is, I think it may be out near Lucan which is miles away). So, being the cautionary lad that I am I ring up SGS and ask them whether they received my file from RSA only to be told that they got nothing on me and to ring RSA!!!! So, reluctantly I ring back RSA only to be told once again to ring SGS!!! Told the RSA person at the end of the phone that that wasn't going to happen as I was just on the phone to SGS. On hearing this the "nice" RSA person transfers me to a friggin answering machine!!! What the hell am I to do with an answering machine??? Only thing I could think of doing was leaving a really long winded message explaining my predicament all over again and leaving my number in hopes that someone somewhere would actually give a shit about the message that I had just left for them (which is very doubtful).
After speaking to the "very helpful" answering machine I decided that it would be easier to just reapply to another test centre. So onto RSA again and this time talking to a real person. Told the new person that I just wanted to change the test centre to the Rathgar test centre instead. No problems, they just have to get my file back from SGS (which apparently don't have it) and I just have to be put at the back of the waiting list again which means I'll be apparently waiting for another "few months" (which when translated means I'll have my test date sometime in June 2008 if I'm really really lucky and if the Rathgar test centre doesn't decide to close). I left it at that and now all I can do is sit back and cross my fingers.
It seems that the gods are doing everything in their power to prevent me from driving. The driving test situation in this country, like most things, is such an unbelievable joke. How the hell can the government promise to improve wait times for driving tests by opening more centres and then on the other hand closing down other centres?! And the annoying thing is, when (notice that i say "when" and not "if") I fail my diving test, if (notice that i say "if" now and not "when") it ever comes around, I will have to go through the whole application process again. It could potentially be 2 years before I can even come close to finally applying for a full drivers licence. No wonder there are so many people in this country just driving around illegally on their 8th,9th,10th etc. provisional licences. It's not their fault. It's the system that is to blame here. I do not know of any other country in the world which has as ridiculous a situation as Ireland does when it comes to getting a full driving license.
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