Half of the almost 1.4 million cars that underwent the National Car Test (NCT) failed the initial test in 2019, the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show.
The CSO’s Transport Omnibus 2019 shows that following this initial test, 97 per cent of vehicles passed after one or more tests.
When it comes to penalty points, males were found to have incurred about two thirds of the 163,118 endorsement notices where gender was recorded, with speeding the most common offence for both men and women.
By the close of last year, there were 864 drivers with 12 penalty points on their licences. 122 of these received all 12 penalty points in 2019.
There were 186,379 driving tests conducted in 2019, with an average pass rate of 53.9 per cent.
The number of driving tests conducted in 2019 increased by 36.7 percent compared with the previous year, while the average waiting time for a test decreased from over 11 weeks to five and a half weeks.
Public transport
2.2 million cars were licensed in the State last year, with about five per cent of those licensed for the first time in 2019.
Just over 12 per cent of new private cars licensed in 2019 were electric or electric hybrid, compared to about seven per cent in 2018.
Irish licensed vehicles travelled a total of 47.1 billion kilometres last year and, on average, each private car travelled 16,352 kilometres.
In 2019, 140 people lost their lives on Irish roads and September was the month with the highest number of fatalities as 18 were recorded.
When it comes to public transport, a total of 227.7 million journeys were taken on scheduled bus services, 48.3 million journeys were taken on the Luas and 50.1 million journeys were by rail in 2019.
For aviation, a total of 38.1 million passengers passed through Irish airports 2019, with Dublin to Heathrow the most popular route accounting for just under five per cent of all passenger movement.
