A sensible approach to law flouted all too often

‘IHEAR their screams, I see them die again and again.” Geraldine Clancy and her daughter Louise Ann after they were killed just before Christmas three years ago. Their car was pushed into a flooded dyke and they drowned following a collision near their home in Kilworth, Co Cork. The car that crashed into them was driven by an unaccompanied learner driver.

The words of the Clancy family after the court case where the learner driver was convicted were harrowing.

“The thought of my mother and sister screaming for their lives, knowing that they were going to drown tortures me every night. The nightmares leave me physically exhausted,” Declan Clancy recalled as he stood with his father, Noel, and sister, Fiona.

No family should have to go through the trauma the Clancy family have endured.

Everyone knows learner drivers are breaking the law by driving unaccompanied. The law is flouted.

The campaigning by the Clancy family has inspired a change in the law for driving unaccompanied.

The focus will be switched back to the owner of the car. Now, Transport Minister Shane Ross is bringing forward legislation which will result in car owners who allow learner drivers to use their vehicles unaccompanied facing six months in prison and a €2,000 fine. The new law will also give gardaí formal powers to impound vehicles on the spot if the learner driver is unaccompanied.

This sensible measure deserves Oireachtas support.