HANSARD EXTRACT
| Private
Members' Business: National Driver Education Program |
| 7 November 2005 |
Mr HAYES
(Werriwa) (3.56 p.m.)—Every
driver should strive to be the best driver they can possibly be.
That is not only for their sake but for the sake of everybody else
on the road. Coming into the season when the national road toll
makes nightly news, it is important that some thought is given to
how we might continue to cut the road toll. For this reason, I would
support the development of an education scheme for the youngest
drivers in our community so that good skills and sound habits could
be learnt from day one.
Those in the 17- to 20-year-old age bracket are
three times more likely than drivers aged 21 and over to be involved
in serious car crashes. Young drivers are also at the greatest risk
of dying in a road crash. While they hold approximately 16 per cent
of licences, unfortunately they account for 28 per cent of vehicle
crashes. This is a telling statistic, which in part explains the
estimated $15 billion that motor vehicle accidents cost our
community annually, which is an essential basis of this motion. This
is a staggering statistic and one that needs to be addressed.
Inexperience, it seems, is the key contributing
factor to crashes. I am pleased to be able to report to the House
that efforts are being made to address the issue of adequate young
driver training. One local initiative currently under way in the
Macarthur region is being delivered by volunteers and funded by
Rotary. Through this scheme, young drivers are steered down the
right path by people such as retired police sergeant
Ray
James, who volunteers his time to teach some of the skills, tips and
tricks that he learned as a New South Wales police officer. I would
like to recognise and congratulate volunteers like Ray and the
people at Rotary for developing and implementing this scheme that is
being delivered through schools in the
Macarthur region.
The NRMA is also making a contribution to young
driver training though its new Safer Driving Education Centre and
the release of its new Safer Driving DVD. The NRMA’s Safer
Driving Education Centre is now equipped with two new
simulators—half Volkswagen Golfs, to be exact—to give young L-plate
drivers the feel of what it is like to drive on the road. The
technology involved in these simulators is the type that is being
used for training astronauts and pilots, so the experience, as I
understand it, is quite realistic.
The centre also has a number of full-time
professional instructors using dual-control Golfs so that once
learner drivers graduate from a simulator they can directly
translate their experiences onto the road in a vehicle which they
are familiar with. While the centre provides practical experience,
the DVD produced by NRMA allows a number of key messages to be
reinforced before young drivers even get on the road. These are
important tips that parents may forget when teaching their children
how to drive—important tips that may help cut our road toll.
These two groups realised how important it was
to have young drivers trained correctly. The government was willing
to make promises about young driver education during the election
campaign, and now it is time to deliver. The details of the scheme
of course need to be negotiated between the relevant state
government driver licensing and education authorities, but a real
effort has to be made. I am sure that I am not alone in hearing
stories about how bad some drivers are. These days TV programs are
even made about how silly some people are on the road.
With those sorts of experiences in mind and
with the knowledge that, as Rotary and the NRMA have shown, it is
possible to deliver effective programs to young drivers, it is about
time that these models were used to develop programs that can
deliver training to more young drivers. Every driver—even those who
are cautious drivers—knows that it does not take much to get into
trouble on the road. If, through a national education program, young
drivers can be instilled with good driving habits from day one,
there is a chance that we might see a greater reduction in our
national road toll.
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