Government’s strategy will improve road safety

The AA has welcomed the Government’s Road Safety Strategy to 2020, noting that it will certainly help to improve New Zealand’s road safety record.

AA General Manager of Motoring Affairs Mike Noon has given the strategy an 8/10 rating

“We are pleased with the direction of the strategy, but there is lots to do to implement it. We urge the Government to get on and make it happen,” he says.

The AA believes that by focusing on young drivers, drink drivers and motorcyclists, the strategy correctly targets high risk areas where injuries and trauma is happening.

Improvements to the way roads are engineered and vehicle safety will also be critical to cutting the road toll and the number of serious injuries over the next decade.

“We are pleased the Government has taken an action-orientated approach and is looking to tackle a wide range of factors to improve road safety.

“There will no doubt be a lot of discussion on how each element of the strategy is implemented. The AA will be working with Government agencies during this process to represent our members and get the best road safety outcomes we can,” says Mr Noon.

Young Drivers

The AA is pleased with proposals to improve young driver safety, in particular that more emphasis will be put on supervised practice for learners and the need for young drivers to receive additional education on road safety.

The AA believes the Government needs to increase the learner licence period from six to 12 months, and require 120 hours (equates to 2-3 hours a week over 12 months) of supervised driving practice before sitting the restricted licence test. This is currently done in Victoria (Australia) and also in parts of Scandinavia, which are known for their road safety achievements.

“Failure to achieve 120 hours practice on the learner licence would limit the benefits achieved elsewhere in the road safety strategy. We need young drivers to get more driving practice before they start driving by themselves, which is when they are at the greatest risk of crashing.”

Young drivers are the safest drivers on the road when they are being supervised on their learner licence. When they first start to drive ‘solo’ on their restricted licence, young men are seven times more likely to crash than men aged 45-49 and young women are 6 times more likely to crash than women aged 45-49. This shows that currently we are failing to prepare young people properly for unsupervised driving, says Mr Noon.

“We are pleased that the Government is proposing more road safety education for young people to be delivered through schools. The AA also wants more information for parents so that they can better help their children to become safe drivers when they learn to drive.”

Drink Driving

The AA supports the Government’s move to tackle New Zealand’s problems with drink driving.

“The majority of people killing themselves and other innocent road users by driving drunk are very, very drunk, up to twice the current legal adult limit,” says Mr Noon.

“AA members tell us that they want hard cord drunk drivers off the road. Initiatives such the introduction of compulsory alcohol interlocks, a zero drink drive limit for people caught drink driving, and a review of offences and penalties for drink driving causing death and serious injury, would help achieve this.”

The AA also supports a zero drink drive limit for drivers under 20, with a tolerance level to allow for testing equipment error, and a comprehensive review of the current legal 0.08 blood alcohol limit for fully licensed adult drivers.

Motorcycle Safety

The AA is pleased that the strategy includes initiatives to improve motorcycle safety. Currently, motorcyclists are over represented in crash statistics and the number of motorcyclists in New Zealand is growing. The AA believes national training programmes for new and returning riders are needed.

Give Way Rules

For many years the AA has lobbied for changes to the Right Hand (Give Way) Rule.

“We are very pleased to see this on the agenda. It is ridiculous that we have a rule unique to New Zealand. Not only does this pose problems for New Zealanders travelling overseas, but also for the one million plus tourists to New Zealand each year,” says Mr Noon.

Obviously this might require engineering changes at some intersections and a thorough education campaign, but all of this is achievable and with clearer rules our roads would be safer for everyone.”

ENDS

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