I live in Ireland, used to live in the US, and had to take the Irish driver training and test as an adult, experienced driver. (Who had been driving approx as long as my instructor had been alive).
The test was difficult, picky, and the things that they were looking for were not necessarily correlated with safe, strictly legal driving. (e.g., target speed in a 50KPH zone (urban area) was 53, not 49, and to not approach that with conviction made you a too timid driver.)
And despite the intensive tests -- drivers here are crap. On the dog walk tonight, there were 3 cases of drivers failing to yield at crosswalks.
