There are over 19,000 learner drivers in Galway – contributing to what the Irish Road Haulage Association is calling a national crisis with almost 400,000 ‘L’ plate drivers on the country’s roads as a whole.

The figures, released by the Irish Road Safety Authority, reveal that there were 394,128 learner permit holders now on Ireland’s roads in Ireland at the end of September – and 19,107 of them are in Galway.

Most learner permit holders in Galway – 4,684 drivers – are aged between 17 and 20, with 4,422 aged between 30 and 39 .

Just 25 learner permit holders in Galway are over the age of 80 while 140 learner permit holders are between 70 and 79 years old in Galway according to figures provided by the RSA.

Overall, that is an increase of 12,257 learner drivers nationally in the six months from March – at time when Garda figures show that 158 people had lost their lives on Irish roads, which is nine more deaths than the same period in 2024.

That led IRHA President Ger Hyland to say that the level of inexperienced drivers on our roads ‘beggars belief’ at a time, he said, when millions of taxpayers’ euros are being pumped into the RSA to clear a chronic backlog of driver testing across all licence categories.

Mr 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,” he said.

“It is a mess and not getting any better, despite all the creative accounting that the RSA are doing with driver testing figures,” he added.

The IRHA President also 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.

Mr Hyland said that Irish roads had become dangerous places for his members and he accused the RSA of not getting a handle on what is a crisis for Irish road safety.

“How are we supposed to accept that around 10% of Ireland’s driving public are on some kind of learner permit?” he asked.

“Over thirty organisations representing road safety, cycling, and pedestrian advocacy groups across Ireland issued a joint statement last year expressing a lack of confidence in the Irish Road Safety Authority,” he said.

“Similarly, the Irish Road Haulage Industry has indicated that it no longer holds confidence in the RSA nor the figures they continue to present around driver testing,” he added.

Pictured: IRHA President Ger Hyland.