Eleven drivers over 80 with ‘L’ plates in Galway

Date Published: 26-Apr-2012

By Dara Bradley

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but in the case of pensioner drivers in Galway, they’re wrong – new figures show that there are 11 people over the age of 80 in Galway who are on a provisional driving licence and whose cars are donning ‘L’ plates.

The new release from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) reveals that there were 14,789 learner drivers in the driving licensing authority that covers Galway city and county.

Of these learner drivers, 11 are over the age of 80. Nationally, there are 411 learner drivers aged 80 and over who are still on provisional licences. There are 120 learner drivers in Galway aged 17 or under.

A total of 7,569 learner drivers in Galway are female and 7,220 are male. There are 279,877 learner drivers nationally.

The figures are contained in the CSO’s Transport Omnibus, which was just released this week and relates to the year 2010.

There are 136,668 drivers in Galway on a full licence – of these, 2,575 are under the age of 20 and 1,946 are over the age of 80.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.