August 20, 2024 • 11 mins
The learners licensing system is under the spotlight, with calls for New Zealand to adopt Australia's stricter approach.
It comes after figures show young kiwis are responsible for a disproportionate number of road deaths.
The AA wants to double the learners licence period, implement supervised driving hours, and have tougher penalties for young drivers.
Road Safety Campaigner Greg Murphy told Francesca Rudkin that this is nothing new.
He said that we’ve been accepting these statistics for decades and have done very little to move the needle.
Murphy said that a lot of drivers aren’t prepared, and we can do much, much better and save a lot more lives through better preparedness.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Carry Wooden Morning's podcast from News
Talk SEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
We have been talking about the new research released by
the AA. They are calling for improvements to our driver
licensing system as young drivers are three times more likely
to die on New Zealand roads than in Australia. Eighteen
to twenty four year olds have the highest rate of
road deaths in New Zealand, so the AA backed research.
It highlights overseas licensing laws that could work here, including
(00:35):
tougher penalties, additional testing and doubling the learner license period.
I think we would all like to shift that statistic.
As the parent of an eighteen year old driver, I
find it slightly terrifying. So to discuss this, I'm joined
by road safety campaigner Greg Murphy.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Good morning, Good morning, more Ella.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Good to have you with us. Now, tell me, I'm
sure that you've had a look at what the research
has been suggesting, and I'm wondering if you can give
us sort of your thoughts on And they're posing questions, really,
aren't they They're saying, hey, look, these are things that
could potentially help and have helped overseas. Do we need
to extend that learner period for our young drivers.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
We need to do so many I don't disagree with
anything that's been put in this research. I mean, and
you just said before you came to me, you know
that we need to No one would not want to
make change to improve the situation. Well, this is nothing new, franchister,
this is nothing new, and these statistics are not new.
We've been accepting these statistics for decades, right, and we
(01:43):
have not done well, have done incredibly small amounts, very
little to change and move the needle. So at the
end of the day, this piece of research, yes, great,
it costs a probably a whole lot of money to
get it, but it's stuff that I've been advocating and
talking about for a very very long time, well over
(02:06):
a decade, probably fifteen years. So we're not learning, we're
not improving, we're not changing the things we need to
change to to actually make the difference that's required. So yes,
some for these things that they have put out there,
I don't see us moving, certainly from the political side
(02:28):
of things, fast enough and smart enough to listen to
the experts and we change that's necessary to get the outcomes.
So it's a it's a very frustrating space. I've been
in my heading inside changes like this for a long time.
(02:49):
You know. Our practical driver program, which is now back
up and running, is another part of the solution to
have better outcomes is providing and mandating some practical skills,
training and control environments to learn, you know, some of
the very very basics that cars have and the dynamics
(03:11):
and the geometries and the laws of physics around it.
Also to provide that better preparation. So there's a lot
to do. This is you know, it's great to have
the AA having these things, and I'm going to look
to reach out to them to talk to them about
it as well, to see what we can do together
to get the changes required.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Do you think can young drivers in that eighteen to
twenty four year old period, and obviously you can start
getting your license from sixteen slowing down the process. Is
that a good first step?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yes, it is in some ways, but I think we
need to redesign the process to force learning. So the
current system is all about just being legal right, it
doesn't actually push the learning' and that is what the
AA is saying as well, with there's more to be
(04:02):
done there and extending it to actually provide better plat
form for better learning, but to get a learner's license.
Right now, those that are going and sitting the tests
are actually just memorizing the answers to the question. They're
not actually understanding.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
No mind behind it. Yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
That's exactly right. So you're not you're not actually learning
the reason why that answer is the appropriate answer to
that question. You just know that that is the answer,
but we're not forcing you to take that on and
go and understand why it is in many of those questions.
So we've got to do a better job. And then
and then the restricted license as well. They're not learning
enough to be able to get the restricted. And then
(04:43):
we've got the defensive driving course, which is which is
the AA provide that And that's not a pass or
a fail, it's a it's just a participation certificate to
get six months off you're restricted. That's not that's also
not helping helping the problem. So there's a lot to
be done. We can do much much better. We can
save a lot more lives through better preparedness. Drivers are
(05:03):
not prepared. They are not prepared when you were legal,
you get your full license, there's a big question around
are you safe? And I don't believe people are safe.
They're just legal to drive. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
My question was, are you ready? Is I don't know
your last hour? I said, you know, when my kid
got his license, I had two conflicting emotions. One just
huge excitement that I had some freedom, he had some independence, fantastic.
But the second part was just pure terror that he
was being unleashed on the roads.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
And it's a real problem because you we have built
this culture around oh my god, I'm going to have
this freedom. My kid's going to be able to drive
themselves on the road. And because I'm not going to
have to get up at six o'clock and take them
here or whatever, and I'm not going to have to
pick them up at midnight from a party or whatever,
they're doing. All the things they're doing get I get
(05:54):
a bit of freedom. Yeah, but the risk that they
are we are putting them in the environment that we're
putting them in, and the and the potential for disaster.
Parents are not realizing. There's kids that are driving on
restricted license and their parents are allowing them to have passengers.
There's parents that are allowing their kids to get in
a car with a driver on a restricted license, and
(06:17):
I see it every day and the risk is enormous,
and they go, oh yeah, but it's just from home
to school. It's just a few kilometers. Crashes, death injury
can happen within a few kilometers. It doesn't have to
be distance based. It doesn't have to be because of
where you're going. In some cases, knowing the road, the
familiarity of the journey makes it even more dangerous because
(06:41):
you're not looking at where you're going.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
What do you say to a parent like myself of
an eighteen year old who's been driving, you know, since
they started to learn at sixteen, who thinks they're pretty
good at driving?
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yep, they all do.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Oh Greg, does my head in what would be the
best thing for him to do to become a better
skilled driver?
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Well, well, my opinion is, and that's why I've put
so much effort into it, is the likes of our
street Smart program, which is a controlled environment program. You
get to learn about just simple basic skills that you
aren't necessarily mostly not learning through going through a driving
(07:25):
instructor around the roads. You get to come to a
controlled environment, You get to understand emergency breaking, you understand
perception around distances, reaction times, those kinds of things in
a controlled environment. And that's where I believe a big
part of where we're lacking is not allowing those things
(07:45):
to be done. Yes, there's always a cost involved to
these things, but what value do you put on a
family member, on your kid's life at the end of
the day, that question has to be asked and you've
got to actually realistically answer it. So, you know, for
one hundred and forty nine dollars for street Smart, you
come and spend a day in a controlled environment, understanding
(08:06):
the dynamics of a motor vehicle, learning about emergency breaking,
understanding tires, understanding dynamics, all those kinds of things which
which one is going to improve.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Drive actually a pretty good price. Do they do they do?
Do they drive your caral Mica?
Speaker 3 (08:23):
No, you drive your own, and you come along, You
come along with him, and you do the court you
basically of course as well, and and one hundred percent
go away from it with a whole new understanding of
the risks and also a whole bunch of new skills
that you didn't have before. How do you improve?
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yes, yes, because then if you're then if we are
then supervising, we might be a little bit we're all
a little bit more switched on.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Well, you're putting your your you're you're the lead on
preparing your son to drive? Well are you? Are you
an expert driver? Are you do you? Are you the
safest driver you can possibly believe? Do you know everything?
Speaker 1 (09:01):
That?
Speaker 3 (09:01):
There is? No But that's what we do in this country.
We take people that have been driving. I've been driving
fifteen years and haven't had a crash. That doesn't make
you a good driver just because you haven't crashed, that's
the whole idea. But your habits that you don't know
are bad you're passing on to your kids. In some
countries parents, unless you've done a training course, you're not
(09:24):
allowed to teach your kids to drive in other countries.
In other countries there's you know, Czechoslovakia's twenty eight hours
of professional and professional training to get a driver's license.
You know, we're at the bottom of the rung. It's
no wonder our statistics of what they are because we
are so simplistic in our preparation of our young drivers.
(09:46):
And then we let them go through and hopefully get
through navigating the myriad of issues and risks and situations
and hopefully they get through it and then they pass
on that to their kids. And that's our system. It's
got flaws all the way through it, just very quickly.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Before you go, Greg, what about also making sure that
our young people have ticked off a variety of driving
in different conditions. Night driving. You know, my son's done
a lot of open road driving in torrential rain, which
has been very stressful for all of us. But it's
really important that he has that.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Experience very much incredible and that's great. And you know
driving at night, you know, driving in very different roading
conditions on you know, expressways, in dual carriage roads that
are one hundred ks an hour, all that kind of stuff.
It all adds up and it's all really important. But
you've also got to have those those skills that I'm
(10:45):
talking about that we teach at streets smart understanding the
dynamics of a motor vehicle and what to do in
situations that do present themselves in emergencies. Combine that with
all those things as well. It's a big process, it
really is, and we undervalue that massively, and therefore we
get what we've got and that's why we're talking about
(11:05):
it again right now. We will talk about it again, Yeah,
we will talking about it again.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
But look, you've convinced me that's something which I'm going
to do. I'm clocking up quite a list of things
this week that I'm putting on my bucket list. I've
got to give blood and I'm going to do street
smart with my son. Thank you so much, Greg, Always
a pleasure to talk to you. Really appreciate your time.
Greg Murphy, their road safety campaign and key We Driving Legend.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
For more from carry Wood and Mornings, listen live to
news talks that be from nine am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Carry Wooden Morning's podcast from News
Talk SEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
We have been talking about the new research released by
the AA. They are calling for improvements to our driver
licensing system as young drivers are three times more likely
to die on New Zealand roads than in Australia. Eighteen
to twenty four year olds have the highest rate of
road deaths in New Zealand, so the AA backed research.
It highlights overseas licensing laws that could work here, including
(00:35):
tougher penalties, additional testing and doubling the learner license period.
I think we would all like to shift that statistic.
As the parent of an eighteen year old driver, I
find it slightly terrifying. So to discuss this, I'm joined
by road safety campaigner Greg Murphy.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Good morning, Good morning, more Ella.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Good to have you with us. Now, tell me, I'm
sure that you've had a look at what the research
has been suggesting, and I'm wondering if you can give
us sort of your thoughts on And they're posing questions, really,
aren't they They're saying, hey, look, these are things that
could potentially help and have helped overseas. Do we need
to extend that learner period for our young drivers.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
We need to do so many I don't disagree with
anything that's been put in this research. I mean, and
you just said before you came to me, you know
that we need to No one would not want to
make change to improve the situation. Well, this is nothing new, franchister,
this is nothing new, and these statistics are not new.
We've been accepting these statistics for decades, right, and we
(01:43):
have not done well, have done incredibly small amounts, very
little to change and move the needle. So at the
end of the day, this piece of research, yes, great,
it costs a probably a whole lot of money to
get it, but it's stuff that I've been advocating and
talking about for a very very long time, well over
(02:06):
a decade, probably fifteen years. So we're not learning, we're
not improving, we're not changing the things we need to
change to to actually make the difference that's required. So yes,
some for these things that they have put out there,
I don't see us moving, certainly from the political side
(02:28):
of things, fast enough and smart enough to listen to
the experts and we change that's necessary to get the outcomes.
So it's a it's a very frustrating space. I've been
in my heading inside changes like this for a long time.
(02:49):
You know. Our practical driver program, which is now back
up and running, is another part of the solution to
have better outcomes is providing and mandating some practical skills,
training and control environments to learn, you know, some of
the very very basics that cars have and the dynamics
(03:11):
and the geometries and the laws of physics around it.
Also to provide that better preparation. So there's a lot
to do. This is you know, it's great to have
the AA having these things, and I'm going to look
to reach out to them to talk to them about
it as well, to see what we can do together
to get the changes required.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Do you think can young drivers in that eighteen to
twenty four year old period, and obviously you can start
getting your license from sixteen slowing down the process. Is
that a good first step?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yes, it is in some ways, but I think we
need to redesign the process to force learning. So the
current system is all about just being legal right, it
doesn't actually push the learning' and that is what the
AA is saying as well, with there's more to be
(04:02):
done there and extending it to actually provide better plat
form for better learning, but to get a learner's license.
Right now, those that are going and sitting the tests
are actually just memorizing the answers to the question. They're
not actually understanding.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
No mind behind it. Yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
That's exactly right. So you're not you're not actually learning
the reason why that answer is the appropriate answer to
that question. You just know that that is the answer,
but we're not forcing you to take that on and
go and understand why it is in many of those questions.
So we've got to do a better job. And then
and then the restricted license as well. They're not learning
enough to be able to get the restricted. And then
(04:43):
we've got the defensive driving course, which is which is
the AA provide that And that's not a pass or
a fail, it's a it's just a participation certificate to
get six months off you're restricted. That's not that's also
not helping helping the problem. So there's a lot to
be done. We can do much much better. We can
save a lot more lives through better preparedness. Drivers are
(05:03):
not prepared. They are not prepared when you were legal,
you get your full license, there's a big question around
are you safe? And I don't believe people are safe.
They're just legal to drive. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
My question was, are you ready? Is I don't know
your last hour? I said, you know, when my kid
got his license, I had two conflicting emotions. One just
huge excitement that I had some freedom, he had some independence, fantastic.
But the second part was just pure terror that he
was being unleashed on the roads.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
And it's a real problem because you we have built
this culture around oh my god, I'm going to have
this freedom. My kid's going to be able to drive
themselves on the road. And because I'm not going to
have to get up at six o'clock and take them
here or whatever, and I'm not going to have to
pick them up at midnight from a party or whatever,
they're doing. All the things they're doing get I get
(05:54):
a bit of freedom. Yeah, but the risk that they
are we are putting them in the environment that we're
putting them in, and the and the potential for disaster.
Parents are not realizing. There's kids that are driving on
restricted license and their parents are allowing them to have passengers.
There's parents that are allowing their kids to get in
a car with a driver on a restricted license, and
(06:17):
I see it every day and the risk is enormous,
and they go, oh yeah, but it's just from home
to school. It's just a few kilometers. Crashes, death injury
can happen within a few kilometers. It doesn't have to
be distance based. It doesn't have to be because of
where you're going. In some cases, knowing the road, the
familiarity of the journey makes it even more dangerous because
(06:41):
you're not looking at where you're going.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
What do you say to a parent like myself of
an eighteen year old who's been driving, you know, since
they started to learn at sixteen, who thinks they're pretty
good at driving?
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yep, they all do.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Oh Greg, does my head in what would be the
best thing for him to do to become a better
skilled driver?
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Well, well, my opinion is, and that's why I've put
so much effort into it, is the likes of our
street Smart program, which is a controlled environment program. You
get to learn about just simple basic skills that you
aren't necessarily mostly not learning through going through a driving
(07:25):
instructor around the roads. You get to come to a
controlled environment, You get to understand emergency breaking, you understand
perception around distances, reaction times, those kinds of things in
a controlled environment. And that's where I believe a big
part of where we're lacking is not allowing those things
(07:45):
to be done. Yes, there's always a cost involved to
these things, but what value do you put on a
family member, on your kid's life at the end of
the day, that question has to be asked and you've
got to actually realistically answer it. So, you know, for
one hundred and forty nine dollars for street Smart, you
come and spend a day in a controlled environment, understanding
(08:06):
the dynamics of a motor vehicle, learning about emergency breaking,
understanding tires, understanding dynamics, all those kinds of things which
which one is going to improve.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Drive actually a pretty good price. Do they do they do?
Do they drive your caral Mica?
Speaker 3 (08:23):
No, you drive your own, and you come along, You
come along with him, and you do the court you
basically of course as well, and and one hundred percent
go away from it with a whole new understanding of
the risks and also a whole bunch of new skills
that you didn't have before. How do you improve?
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yes, yes, because then if you're then if we are
then supervising, we might be a little bit we're all
a little bit more switched on.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Well, you're putting your your you're you're the lead on
preparing your son to drive? Well are you? Are you
an expert driver? Are you do you? Are you the
safest driver you can possibly believe? Do you know everything?
Speaker 1 (09:01):
That?
Speaker 3 (09:01):
There is? No But that's what we do in this country.
We take people that have been driving. I've been driving
fifteen years and haven't had a crash. That doesn't make
you a good driver just because you haven't crashed, that's
the whole idea. But your habits that you don't know
are bad you're passing on to your kids. In some
countries parents, unless you've done a training course, you're not
(09:24):
allowed to teach your kids to drive in other countries.
In other countries there's you know, Czechoslovakia's twenty eight hours
of professional and professional training to get a driver's license.
You know, we're at the bottom of the rung. It's
no wonder our statistics of what they are because we
are so simplistic in our preparation of our young drivers.
(09:46):
And then we let them go through and hopefully get
through navigating the myriad of issues and risks and situations
and hopefully they get through it and then they pass
on that to their kids. And that's our system. It's
got flaws all the way through it, just very quickly.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Before you go, Greg, what about also making sure that
our young people have ticked off a variety of driving
in different conditions. Night driving. You know, my son's done
a lot of open road driving in torrential rain, which
has been very stressful for all of us. But it's
really important that he has that.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Experience very much incredible and that's great. And you know
driving at night, you know, driving in very different roading
conditions on you know, expressways, in dual carriage roads that
are one hundred ks an hour, all that kind of stuff.
It all adds up and it's all really important. But
you've also got to have those those skills that I'm
(10:45):
talking about that we teach at streets smart understanding the
dynamics of a motor vehicle and what to do in
situations that do present themselves in emergencies. Combine that with
all those things as well. It's a big process, it
really is, and we undervalue that massively, and therefore we
get what we've got and that's why we're talking about
(11:05):
it again right now. We will talk about it again, Yeah,
we will talking about it again.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
But look, you've convinced me that's something which I'm going
to do. I'm clocking up quite a list of things
this week that I'm putting on my bucket list. I've
got to give blood and I'm going to do street
smart with my son. Thank you so much, Greg, Always
a pleasure to talk to you. Really appreciate your time.
Greg Murphy, their road safety campaign and key We Driving Legend.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
For more from carry Wood and Mornings, listen live to
news talks that be from nine am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
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