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P-Plate drivers!! (2 Viewers)

Monkey Butler

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I'm not saying don't educate people about the dangers of speeding (in fact, I actually listed that as one of the things that should be done), but it's pretty evident that the current way of looking at things - ads, fines, possible curfews - isn't working. Accepting that competitiveness or egotism or whatever is a part of human nature doesn't mean encouraging those traits.

Over 99% of people understand that speeding is dangerous and stupid, and I'm pretty sure that most of them think that way not because they don't know how to speed well, but because they understand the risks involved to themselves and to others.

And this might be a pretty spurious argument, but if you teach driving skills to kids, people who might otherwise end up burning around on the open road might end up on the race track instead.
 

loquasagacious

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I wrote this when the tabloid media first floated the issue:


Thank God for Carl Sculley, finally the knee-jerk laws we need. To long have I driven my siblings to school and car pooled with friends to save money. To long have I been allowed out past 10pm. To long have myself and my friends been able to drive their parents cars.

I live twenty minutes by car from the nearest 'population centre', this law would make it illegal for me to go and see a movie in the evening, indeed to have much of a social life at all. The mere idea of a curfew like this should be abhorrent to a democracy, I am 18, I can vote, I can leave home, I can drink and I can have sex. Society recognises that I am mature enough to make these decisions, yet Carl Sculley believes that I am not mature enough to be able to decide when I can drive. Also were I to have a shift that finished past 10pm I would have no legal way of getting home unless of course a fully qualified driver slept in the car during my shift and could then supervise me on the way home.

A limit of one teenage passenger, now there's a brilliant idea. I drive my siblings to school every day I am able to, because of bus and class timetables this means they get to school only half an hour before school compared to an hour if they were to catch the bus. I drive them home in the afternoon and they get home three quarters of an hour before they would on the bus. This restriction would make it impossible to car pool, a practice which is both more affordable and environmentally friendly (and is encouraged by the RTA). If young adults can't car pool then we will have a situation where you infact have more cars on the road, and if as we are led to believe young drivers are so accident prone then increasing their number can only be a bad thing.

I would be interested to see what the power to weight ratio young drivers would be limited to, either it will be so high as to affect a tiny percentage of vehicles or it will restrict young adults from driving their parents Falcon, Commodore, Lancer, Forrester or almost any other modern vehicle. We simply see the official power figure of many new cars reduced whilst actual power remains the same or increases. A car that is fairly slow in stock configuration may have after-market parks fitted that substantially increase it's power, e.g. a turbocharger or supercharger. Vehicles thus modified are not required to lodge a revised power and power to weight ratio figures (provided that modification does not alter the displacement of the engine beyond a certain point, which neither turbo nor supercharger do) and therefore unless the police are going to put every car they pull over on a dynometer and a set of scales to measure its power to weight then this is unenforceable.

These restrictions will be ignored by drivers who they are aimed at saving, as young drivers who engage is risky behaviour that may result in an accident will not baulk at evading these restrictions. Particularly as evasion is as simple as not displaying their 'P-plates', to successfully stop this the police would have to pull over every driver and check their licence.

Unless Carl Sculley wanted to severely disadvantage young adults exemptions would have to be granted for work, study and siblings. There are several problems with this: an exemption will not necessarily be easily and quickly obtainable, the majority of young adults with a job are casuals and therefore their shifts may vary from week to week meaning that any job entitles a P-plater to be out after 10pm or that they are allowed out only on the days they work and what is to stop a P-plater from keeping an exemption even if they no longer work? For a system of exemptions to work the police would have to pull over all P-platers, making an assumption of guilt, and place an onus on the driver to prove that they are exempt and that their exemption is valid.

This measure is a simple vote grab designed to appeal to two sections of society: those prone to derogatory statements in regard to “the youth of today” and those who can not control their own children to varying degrees or in some cases enough. The statistics used to back these restrictions are themselves misleading, the quoted figures are that 7% of all drivers make up 25% of accidents between 10pm and 2pm. When the accidents per kilometre are examined it can be seen that the accident rate of young adults is only marginally greater than that of the middle aged whilst the over 65's have an accident rate almost triple that of younger drivers.

As a green P-plater, I can make several observations of our system and suggestions for improvements. Our licensing system is to easy, a general knowledge test, a simple on-road test and laughable hazard perception testing,difficulties teens have with these are primarily psychological as they are not difficult. Crucially however our system does not require practise driving in various conditions, training or testing in on-road hazard avoidance. A driver can get their P-plates without having driven in the dark, driven in the rain (I'll admit that weather conditions don't always make this possible) or done an emergency stop.

I believe several reforms are necessary: Speed restrictions on L-plates should be removed (taken to 110km/h like a black/gold license) so that under the instruction of a supervising driver learners may experience motorways and lane changes at motorway speeds. More hours of experience, at least 75 or as many as 100 hours of experience before a P1 on-road test may be attempted. Of these driving at night must make up a certain percentage. A defensive driving course should be mandatory when on L's and/or P's. The P1 on-road test should include an emergency stop. Like in South Australia the location of accidents causing death or injury should be marked by a simple black or red post respectively.

The restrictions proposed are clearly flawed and poorly conceived. They will serve to penalise law abiding drivers, doing little to prevent deaths of risk taking drivers. To be fairly enforced the police would have to pull over every car they see, check their licence and if they are a P-plater ensure they are carrying only one passenger, check power and weight of the vehicle and if past 10pm demand that the driver prove they are exempt from the curfew. Our police force has neither the numbers nor funding to do this. Even if these restrictions were successful in reducing accidents by those aged 17-21 logic dictates that this would be a false reduction as accidents would now increase among 21 year olds. As having turned 21 they are, allowed to drive unaccompanied at night for the first time, allowed to carry more than one passenger at a time for the first time, allowed to drive a powerful car and allowed to drink and then drive. The proposed restrictions will prove to be ineffective, unenforceable and inconvenient, increased levels of driver training however can and will reduce the road toll.
 

Generator

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The only problem with additional training measures (such as defensive driving courses) is that it will cost quite a bit... Can you see the government covering those costs, and if not do you think that it would be fair to introduce the possibility that only those with the financial means may be able to successfully pass their licence/driving tests?

I'm not saying that the current system is great, but reforming the system will not be an easy task.
 

Generator

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In many cases those in most need of a job must be able to drive in order to reach their place of employment, and given that defensive driving courses cost quite a bit (someone said up to $700), it would not be fair to link an expensive course like this to a licence at such an early stage (if at all) if the government will not cover the costs.
 

iambored

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as much as i do agree with limiting the power - in vic they have limited the power of the cars (in tele yesterday) and many family cars are off the list! what about families who are less well off, they may have one family car, what's the child going to drive?
 

anti

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Getting your Ls at the moment costs $30 for a booking and another $30 for a licence.
I remember paying a large sum just to get my greens .. after the most pointless touchscreen test ever.

A government subsidy would be better than nothing - if the government agreed to subsidise 5 or 10% of a defensive driver training course then at least we would have an incentive to go.


Besides, how much did it cost the government to put in those essentially useless school zone signs?
 

breaking

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all this shit that's in the paper today - these government proposals and stuff - how long will it take them to come onto effect? cause i have had my Ls for almost 3 months now, i wanna be on my Ps as soon as humanly possible, and without any of this curfew/one passenger limit bullcrap.
 

loquasagacious

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$700 ones involve thrashing BMW M3's around whereas using your own car (arguably better anyway) they can be done between $100 and $200.

Further were defensive driving training made compulsory more providers would enter the market and prices would lower.
 

loquasagacious

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www.smh.com.au said:
Driver curfews not practical, says NRMA
November 29, 2004 - 2:37PM
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Some of the NSW government's tough new proposals for young drivers may not be practical, the NSW motoring body said today.

The government today released a discussion paper containing 11 new measures for young drivers.

NRMA President Ross Turnbull welcomed the paper's release but said there were concerns over some of its content.

Mr Turnbull said a curfew or night driving restriction for young drivers, for example, was not a practical option.

"Curfews are not the way simply because in many areas there's no public transport," he told reporters in Sydney.

"People have got to get around and a curfew we don't think is a way to solve the issue."

Restricting young drivers from driving high-powered vehicles could also present a problem, he said.

"In many cases the safest vehicle is the family vehicle, which is high-powered," he said.

"It could be the only vehicle in the family."

Mr Turnbull said the NRMA would like to see more discussion about police enforcement.

Young people had also indicated they wanted more driver training dealing with both driving skills and attitude, he said.

"Driving a motor car is one of the most dangerous things we can do, and we've got to work together with the government and community leaders to change community attitudes to driving a motor car," he said.

"Learning to drive a motor car, both in skills and attitudes, is going to be a very important part of the future we believe."

Mr Turnbull said the NRMA had written to Roads Minister Carl Scully expressing its deep reservations about the time frame for community response to the paper.

Opposition Leader John Brogden today said young people would always be involved in accidents.

"Sadly, I guess it's a reality that young people will probably always be over represented, mainly because the one thing you can't teach somebody is experience," he told reporters.

He reiterated calls for the government to scrap the idea of curfews for young people, as well as restrictions on the number of passengers a P-plater could carrying at one time.

But he called on the government to embrace education to help address the important issue of driver attitude.

"We need to be educating our children all the way through school about road safety," he said.

"We teach our kids about road safety and road awareness when they're toddlers, and then forget about it until they leave school and go down to the RTA to get their licence."

AAP
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National...tical-says-NRMA/2004/11/29/1101577401368.html

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't it the NRMA that kicked off this whole thing? Doesn't matter really - they're saying something intelligent now - I'd rep them if I could lol.
 

Phanatical

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L-platers are the safest group on the road. P-platers on the other hand, are the least safest, and that's because they're of the mentality that they're old enough now, and that they are good enough drivers to go speeding. We need to reinforce the idea that there are negative ramifications for doing dangerous things in cars.
 

Generator

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natstar said:
true but who really cares how much it costs if its going to save lives?
Not everyone has the financial means to cop a 'life saving measure' on the chin. Besides, I'm sure that the government would not see it in such a way if it meant that it had to cover the costs.

I know that I'm scraping along the bottom of the barrel for this example, but it's something that must be considered.

Edit: Sorry, but I had to address natstar's quote.
 

Not-That-Bright

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i can't really imagine someone who can't afford the price of like $100 extra it may be once heaps of people start these courses that can also afford a car =/
 

iamsickofyear12

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You'd think the fact that it was a skyline and 2 wrx's that people crashed was a bit of a hint. Obviously not, because people continue to label it as 'all p platers can't drive for shit' when it just morons driving fast cars and speeding.
 

Generator

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Many people may not see $100 in such a way, not-that-bright, and I doubt that a comprehensive defensive dring course (the type that people seem to be discussing) would be that cheap. Besides, the car safety checks that would have to take place before the course date may not be something for the loose change jar, too.

I do know what you are saying, and I too would have next to no problem in spending a bit on such a course, but I doubt that we would all be in that position.
 

Not-That-Bright

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Yes not everyone is in that position.. but if you're forking out $50 a week for petrol, maybe owning a car or whatever u still probably have to do maintainance....

The really poor just don't drive cars.
 

Monkey Butler

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Peter Finlay Defensive Driving Course Costs $264 currently, and if it were subsidised by the government that cost could decrease. It is a lot of money for some people, but there has to be a distinction made between saving a few bucks for the worse off, or saving lives.
 

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