AA calls for New Zealand to focus on youth road safety this week

“All New Zealanders should reflect this week on the needless loss of young New Zealand lives from road accidents,” says the AA’s General Manager for Motoring Affairs, Mike Noon.

The world’s first United Nations Global Road Safety Week runs from today until Sunday 29 April 2007 and focuses on young road users.

Mr Noon says “more than 1000 children and young adults under the age of 25 are killed around the world in road traffic crashes every day. In New Zealand alone, 151 people aged 24 years or younger died on our roads in the past 12 months.”

“These are absolutely tragic statistics. We all need to take time this week to consider what they mean – for the young people killed, for their families, and for New Zealand’s future. We have to find ways to stop this waste of young lives.”

Mr Noon says the first and easiest thing New Zealand can do to improve youth road safety is update and change the Graduated Driver Licence System.

“The Ministry of Transport is soon due to release for consultation its proposed changes to the Graduated Driver Licence System. These changes must be bold and visionary. They must include compulsory attitudinal education, extra funding to support driver training and education for disadvantaged youth, an increase in the supervised practice time prior to driving solo, greater encouragement to progress to a full licence, as well as graduated and more flexible penalties.”

“The AA believes ‘getting it right’ will cost extra money, but the cost of saving young lives is more than worth it, and the cost of not investing is avoidable tragedy,” says Mr Noon.

Hundreds of initiatives are taking place around the world to mark UN Global Road Safety Week, including a SADD youth workshop organised by Manukau City Council. The key global event is a World Youth Assembly For Road Safety which brings delegations of young people from many countries together in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss and adopt a youth declaration on road safety and define ways to better serve as road safety advocates in their countries.

Further information on the UN Global Road Safety Week is available online at http://www.who.int/roadsafety

ENDS

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