Sensible Simon
January 4th, 2010 at 11:48 am by David FarrarThe Herald reports:
Eighty per cent of people want the legal driving age raised to 18 or higher.
A Herald-Nielsen survey of 2300 people found 74 per cent would like the driving age raised to 18. A further 6.5 per cent wanted it lifted to 20.
As far as I can tell this is not in fact a poll, but just the results of an online survey, so isn’t representative of the population. Anyway back to the substance:
But the Automobile Association says increasing the age is not going to make our roads safer.
“Simply increasing the age is just going to kill them one year later, if you raise it by one year,” said spokesman Simon Lambourne.
Some common sense from Simon.
“Supervised learner drivers are the safest drivers on our roads. When they go solo, the six months after is the greatest risk.”
Mr Lambourne supported enforcing 120 hours of supervised driving before a learner can drive alone.
120 hours might be a bit too much (not sure parent-child relationships can withstand 120 hours of driving together) but the concept of a minimum number of supervised hours before solo driving is a good one.
Related posts:
- Driving License Changes
- Five year limit on learner and restricted licenses
- Safer Journeys
- Two drinks max
January 4th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
More mainstream media promoted alarmist propaganda for the politically indiscriminate Steven Joyce to slaver over.
Vote:January 4th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
I have no problem with the age going upto 18 however that alone will not fix the problem and will piss off remote living people ie farmers.
The solution is simple, proper driver training.. And I don’t mean your average driving instructor I mean full on how to operate a car in all conditions. A guy at Ardmore used to do it but he died, not sure if it’s still going or not.
So cancel ALL current driving instructors, set up places right across the country so everyone learns and gets a license knowing exactly the same thing.
In saying that, it want stop the dickheads that know better.
Vote:January 4th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
“will piss off remote living people i e farmers”. I know you mean will Michaels but how long would it take to set up something like this, train all instructors to the same standard and have places set up right across the country. Even if we have to travel to our nearest town large enough for such a service, will it just wouldn’t work. I think we will just have to live with the system we have. Raising the driving age will be hard on those living in the country, a lot of kids start driving at an early age and need to drive just to get to school and work, something like this could have quite a large economic effects on those living in rural ares.
Vote:January 4th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Michael’s 12.52 on the button with “The solution is simple, proper driver training.. And I don’t mean your average driving instructor I mean full on how to operate a car in all conditions…”
Parents and relatives are usually the worst instructors, they reinforce bad practice and should be a small part of the training process.
The level of formal training envisaged by most at the moment will not stop a young driver. There are more advanced skills that should be taught. It was not until I did an advanced driving course at Manfeild raceway, that I realised what much of safe driving was about.
I agree there are challenges for rural areas but they should should be recognised and addressed but we should not use rural to stop addressing the significantly wider and largely urban originated problem.
Vote:January 4th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
SSB:
Vote:If it took a year or 2 to set up, what the hell.
Asians are well known to be the worst drivers in the country and 9 out of 10 times another Asian is teaching them.
Why should being able to sit behind a wheel and drive around the block give ANYONE the right to drive on our roads?
It’s just utter fucking madness.
When I got my license 5 days after turning 15 in the 70′s I got it like this….. A Coca Cola sponsered company came into our school, 45 minutes a day in a simulator for a week…… next week was 45 minutes a day in a car, then on the Friday 2 cops came in and tested us….. Everyone except for one dipshit passed. 10 minutes in a car with a cop and being able to remember enough answers to pass a test I had the RIGHT to drive. I had never driven before and could then go drive my fathers V8….. Now is anyone telling me that that makes sence??
January 4th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
How about keeping a plaque in the rear window with number of accidents you have had listed . Instead of L for learner you have say 0 or 15 as the case may be.
Vote:January 4th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Michaels, yeah you are right, similar experiences but nothing as flash as a “simulator”. I know that urban and rural are totally different, many kids around here start driving various machines from 10 onwards. They probably have more experience driving but a large urban setting would scare a few. The kids around here tell me a license is much harder to get then it was in our days and I believe them. But I see the problem not as a age issue but like most things in this country a law enforcement issue. If there is mayhem on the roads there must be laws with teeth i.e kids with thousands of dollars of fines and judges that wipe the lot for a hundred hours community service. Shit if I was the boss and anyone went over a thousand dollars in unpaid fines the car would be impounded until the money is paid. If no cash within a month, melt the bloody thing down.
As for Asian drivers, don’t know a lot about them, they are a bit thin on the ground here.
Vote:January 4th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Many young drivers are killed each year through lack of skill. Simon Lambourne is correct in saying that simply raising the driving age not going to make much (or any) difference. It will simply delay those deaths.
But far more young drivers are killed each year not by lack of driving skills, but lack of sense. They know how to drive safely, but choose not to do so.
Better driver training is not going to help with that. But as people (mostly) become more sensible as they get older, raising the driving age may cut the number of young idiots on the road who take foolish risks – like drinking and driving or speeding – and die as a result, or kill other people.
As for people in rural areas, I am sure that an exemption certificate could be possible for those who can show a good enough reason why they need to drive at 15 or 16.
Vote:January 4th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
SSB, totally agree with the punishment side of things….
Why would anyone not talk on their phone because of an $80 fine???
Vote:FFS make it $1,000 and people may re-think it.
As much as I hate all sorts of traffic tickets, make them harsh.
Parking fines = around $10…… Make them $500 and that’ll fix that problem.
Park in a disabled park illegally and you’re fined $1000…. That’ll fix that problem.
Increase the open road speed to 120km and you get caught over that….. $1000 fine.
And if you don’t pay your fines……. send in Crusher Collins AND spend a few months inside.
It’s not fucking rocket science here but sadly no-one in the Beehive has the balls to do it.
Key and Joyce should as they don’t need the job, however I think Joyce might just be eyeing up the PM’s job one day.
January 4th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
“Simply increasing the age is just going to kill them one year later, if you raise it by one year,” said spokesman Simon Lambourne.”
I disagree.
The brain matures at 22 in males.
Increasing driver age to 18, means that brain impaired males are only driving for only 5 years instead of 8 (and males do appear to be the problem).
Vote:January 4th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
In Canada, there have been a number of driver training courses operating for literally decades. My dad signed me up for one when I was 16. (I won’t say how long ago that was.
) I got my licence, learned defensive driving, AND we got lower insurance premiums because the stats showed that driver training (by professionals!) lowered both the number and severity of accidents, thus lowering the insurance costs.
I am always surprised to learn that such practices are not widespread. I learned a few years ago that until recently you did not need to pass ANY sort of test to get a Belgian driver’s licence, you only needed to be a citizen of a certain age. That has changed of course because of the EU, but it was a scary prospect at that time.
Vote:January 4th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
I’ve got a 16 yo learner driver in my house.
We are trying to get to 120 hours before he gets his provisional licence.
We have done a couple of trips away lately and my son says the hardest skill is highway curves at 100kmh. A skill you don’t learn driving around town @ 50kmh but one that is more likely to have fatal results if you get wrong.
I think 120 hour should be mandatory for the learner period – including 20 with a professional instructor.
Remember the Provisional licence period is reduced by 6 mths if a defensive driving course is completed.
The present system means you can’t get a full licence until you are 16 & half at the earliest.
Vote:Raising the age to 18 to start getting a licence means you will have learner drivers, living independantly, with the financial resources to buy their own car. At 15-16 most of them have to borrow a car, which puts a control over their driving.
January 4th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
15 was fine when I got mine. I doubt people are any less mature today, cars are certainly safer.
Vote:January 4th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
@ Michaels “Asians” (whatever you mean by that) arent the worst drivers – it is young men, by a long shot.
Vote:January 4th, 2010 at 5:35 pm
Michaels… you’re joking, surely?
$500 for a parking fine? So tell me, just how does overstaying in a metered spot endanger other road users, or even the driver (who obviously isn’t even in the vehicle at the time)?
Parking fines shouldn’t, in my view, even be enforceable through the criminal courts. Simply because it’s a council, they can have you prosecuted (and, in Australia, failure to pay the resultant fine causes immediate licence suspension, whereas if you speed constantly but pay your fines you have to reach 12 points before your licence is revoked). Yet if it’s a private parking operator it’s a civil matter.
When I park in a Council bay I’m entering into a private contract with the Council, not exercising a public right like driving on the road. If they want to try to extract more from me then their already usurious parking fees, let them sue and bear the cost, not put it through the courts and let the taxpayer pay for it.
I’d rather see Councils audited for the number of parking fines they hand out each year and, if they exceed a certain ratio, the Council obliged to provide more parking, since clearly there’s not enough.
Parking fines do not promote road safety and are simply cash cows for greedy councils. Agree with you on penalties for parking in a disabled spot though, there’s a different motivation for that.
Vote:January 4th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
I guess what I am trying to say Rex is that ALL fines are stupidly low and the only way to fix the problem is to make fines high enough so people will stop doing things. The current penalties are fucked.
Vote:January 4th, 2010 at 6:08 pm
NZ has just had one of the lowest annual road tolls in recent history despite the roads being increasingly populated by christ awful totally incompetent old farts with no driving skills at all, ex-Africans who believe if you drive at over 50% of the speed limit or show any form of consideration for other drivers you’ll be shot by the local warlord and Asians who learnt to drive on roads that heavily congested just to move forward is a major achievement and dickheads want to penalise kids?
Why?
Are they too bloody fast for you?
Vote:January 4th, 2010 at 6:34 pm
That’s a bit ruthless isn’t it? Here it’s more likely hedgehogs and possums.
It would be interesting to know the statistics with young rural drivers. Many have more driving experience from a younger age (on farm). But they also are more likely to have access to parent’s cars and drive longer distances at open road speeds. Gravel roads catch out a lot.
Vote:January 4th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Micahels:
How about this then?
1. review all fines and abolish the bullshit ones. Parking, cutting down my own tree on my own property, painting my house bright pink, etc etc etc.
2. raise the penalties on those that are left, which will be for offences that endanger or seriously interfere with the rights of others.
Psychologically, it means when a fine arrives in the mail a person knows they’ve done something that actually warrants it, rather than throwing it on the growing pile of demands from bureaucratic officialdom (which, it sounds like, will shortly include fines for buying our kids a pie if WHO gets its way).
As it stands at present, just because some w***ker decides to fine you doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong (by most people’s definition of wrong, anyway). That doesn’t engender respect for the law.
Vote:January 4th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
Rex:
Painting ones house pink often interests me. I can just imagine hubby and wife in the paint shop……
“MMMMMM hunny, look at this lovely pink, I think our house will look stunning in it.”
“Yes darling I agree but can we use this blue to go with it?”
“Yes hunny, the neighbours will love it as they’re all dickheads too.”
So apart from that, I agree….. Now go use your powers and fix it!!!
Vote:January 4th, 2010 at 11:58 pm
Fines are largely pointless. I believe they have some merit but need to be an affordable punishment so that those who cock up once can actually met the fine but are not regarded as the only solution. Some kids just collect fines – we’ve all heard the horror stories of $12,000 plus in fines. For memory learner driver, unaccompanied, is $400 – some people seem to regard this as a cost of doing business. Ludicrous.
In terms of the age I had no problem with it being 15 when I was that age and would have to say nor did my family. It was 10km to town and all of us had sporting and other activities. In fact my parents couldn’t wait until I got my full so I could shift my sister as well. I tend to be of the view that “new” drivers are the problem rather than just young drivers although I suspect the stats could point to a correlation between young male drivers and crashes. That would be (to borrow from Dame Margaret) a small but significant minority. Some changes are probably appropriate although I suspect the public in general will be more comfortable with just raising the age rather than having to pay for driver training.
Changes I would make:
Breach of provisional licence – fine of eg: $100 plus return to start of probationary period. Second breach same fine, one month suspension from all driving plus return to start of probationary period. Third offence two months and so on.
Other traffic safety breaches (such as speeding) the fine and points plus return to start of probationary period
Consider making probationary periods longer with mandatory driver training. Further training could reduce a probationary period.
Perhaps a further step on the probationary process between restricted and full to allow family as passengers/extended hours (that could alleviate some of the justified rural concerns).
Vote:January 5th, 2010 at 1:06 am
Back on planet Earth, I wonder how many of the folks who support lifting the driving age would support the following proposal:
1) Anyone convicted of a drink driving offence gets their license revoked for ten years, and are banned from owning a vehicle. No exceptions, no second chances.
2) Anyone convicted of a driving offence causing damage to property, injury or death gets their license revoked permanently. No exception, no second chances.
I know it’s politically unpopular to say this, but owning and operating a vehicle is NOT a fundamental, inalienable human right. And as a tax-payer, I’m sick of picking up the tab (and the human misery that you can never put a dollar value on) for people who seem to think a set of car keys is a licence to be a brain-dead fuck wit.
Vote:January 5th, 2010 at 1:52 am
Craig, I’d support both of those proposals. I don’t see any reason why people should get a second chance to kill me and my family on the road.
Vote:January 5th, 2010 at 9:15 am
Craig – Agree to both your proposals.
As to raising the driving age – this idea stinks. My son is 14 and daughter nearly 12 and we live 35km from town. If the driving age is raised to the age when people leave school I will be taxi driver for another six years.
Vote:January 5th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Craig, your second proposal sucks. You are lumping in drunk/drugged driver acting like a maniac who kills with someone who has made an error of judgment with tragic results. Do you really think, for an example, a life time ban from driving is appropriate for a middle aged mother of two with no previous offending of any sort who does not slow down enough when being sun-struck to avoid striking an elderly chap at less than 30 kph? She couldn’t see him and made a mistake by not taking more precautions – a mistake many of us have made. Unluckily for all due to age and fraility this person died a few days later from heart failure – the crash was held to be a significant contributing factor to premature death. Charge – careless driving causing death.
As an aside I would suggest neither proposal would work. The most significant offenders and greatest risks on the road, from what I can observe, tend to take little attention of being disqualified. For that matter the numbers who drive without any licence continue to amaze me but that’s a story for another time.
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