The phone companion for Category C and CE drivers in Ireland. A spoken examiner for the CPC oral, the signs you need to know, a daily vehicle check by voice, and your journey to the licence, all in one place.
Lessons, the journey to your licence, the CPC oral and the signs, with Emily as your examiner.
See the learner demo Working driverDaily walkaround by voice, drivers’ hours, your documents and reports for the operator.
See the driver demoNo app store, nothing to download. Open the link, add it to your home screen, and it works on iPhone and Android, offline for everything that doesn’t need a voice.
The CPC walkaround oral and the tester’s questions, asked out loud in an Irish voice. Answer by speaking; your words appear as you talk and are marked against the examiner’s points.
Anything you miss goes into your revision bank. Hands-free mode runs the whole exam itself: a pause ends your answer, the result is read aloud, the next question follows.
The 140 signs and markings on the RSA learner sheet as official drawings, with quizzes, flashcards and Emily asking what each one means.
Emily names each of the 34 items as you walk round the truck. Say “grand” or describe the fault. Defects, photos and a PDF report, sent to the operator from the phone.
Every step from medical to licence with your dates. After each lesson, just talk: it is tidied into a record and feeds your Before You Drive card.
A drivers’ hours reckoner, the headline rules and limits, and a wallet that scans your licence, CPC and tacho cards and warns before they expire.
Emily asks the question the way the tester does. You answer the way you would on the day. Nearside listens, writes down what you said, and marks it point by point, then tells you what you covered and what you left out.
It understands Irish, British, American and Indian English, and there is a setting for drivers whose first language isn’t English. With your permission, your answers help tune it for different accents.
The pilot with driving schools in Ireland begins in autumn 2026. Schools issue a code; learners are up and running in two minutes.
Give your learners an examiner in their pocket between lessons, and a lesson log they will actually fill in because they can speak it.
A daily walkaround your drivers will do properly, because Emily walks them round it and they only have to talk.
Free for everyone in the pilot. After the pilot, two simple options and nothing hidden.
Everything, for the length of the pilot, with a code from your school or from us.
Covers your training period through to the test, Category C and CE. Price to be confirmed at the end of the pilot.
Walkaround, reports, hours, documents and the refresher questions, by the month. Tachograph card analysis coming.
No. It is a web app. Open app.nearside.ie once, save it to your home screen, and from then on it opens and behaves like any other app. Updates arrive by themselves.
Your profile, lessons, checks and card photos stay on your phone. When you speak, the sound goes to Microsoft’s speech service in North Europe to be turned into text and is not kept. Your answers are marked by an AI service and not used for training. Full details are under Me, Privacy, in the app.
Reading, quizzes, the journey, the lesson log, the wallet and the hours reckoner work offline. Voice features need a connection. Each Learn topic can be saved for offline so Emily’s clips work in a yard with no signal.
The questions follow the RSA’s published material for the Driver CPC walkaround and the driving test.
Nearside is made in Kildare by someone who went through the Category C process in 2026 and wanted the app he didn’t have.