Josie Spillane: Highlands Motorsport CEO on the Street Smart driving programme, lottery

The Street Smart programme is a hands-on, one-day driver training course for young drivers, teaching crucial real-world skills beyond basic testing, helping reduce road deaths across New Zealand. 

The course focuses on decision-making, hazard perception (like "rabbits" on the road), distraction management, peer pressure, and emergency manoeuvres in a controlled environment with professional coaches. 

Highlands Motorsport CEO Josie Spillane told Kerre Woodham they’re deeply committed to making generational and legislational change around driver training in New Zealand, but until they get to that point, they’re doing what they can to ensure young drivers have the tools to make key split-second decisions.  

The Trust has launched their first lottery to fund the programme, giving Kiwis the chance to win one of three 2025 Subaru WRXs, and go into the draw for three once-in-a-lifetime motorsport experiences. 

With only 10,000 tickets at $100 each, Spillane says the odds are better than Lotto, and help make a life-saving difference for youth on the roads.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Carrywood and Mornings podcast from news
Talks hed B.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
The Street Smart program, which we've talked about before, is
a hands on, one day driver training course for young drivers,
teaching crucial real world skills beyond the basic testing, helping
reduce road deaths across New Zealand. The course focuses on
decision making, hazard perception like rabbits on the road, distraction management,

(00:32):
peer pressure and emergency maneuvers in a controlled environment with
professional coaches, the sort of real life, you know, driving
hazards that crop up that you're not really taught about
when you're doing your driving lessons. The Street Smart Charitable
Trust has launched its first lottery, given kiwis the chance

(00:52):
to win one of three twenty twenty five Sabaru wrx's,
plus you can go on the draw for three once
in a lifetime. Motorsport Experiences Fair Good Christmas Present. Jose
Spalaane is the CEO of Highland's Sport and she joins
me now, very good morning, Josie.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Good morning, Carrie. My gosh, You've covered a lot of
topics this morning, and I've got an opinion on all
of them that I'm really excited to be talking to
you about street Smart and the wonderful work that it's
doing for Kiwi youth on New Zealan Rhodes.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Now, just tell us a bit more about it. Who
is eligible to take part in the program and how
do young people take.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
Part in it? Yeah. So, look, the program was brought
back last year after the tragic death of a young Kiwi,
young Cromwell lad actually Keelyn Strout. He was seventeen years old.
He was driving to work. He had been on his
restricted for just a month and he made a split

(01:51):
second decision that cost him his life when he was driving,
and his family, two days after he was killed, reached
out to see instead of getting flowers in Lasagna, could
they ask people to donate And they hoped that we
might put a couple of kids from Cromwell through some
driver training at Highlands and that become this amazing momentum

(02:16):
to get streets Smart out of Hibernation. My owner and
boss of the owner of the track, actually he doesn't own,
made Tony Quinn. He stepped up and contributed seven hundred
and fifty thousand dollars over the next three years to
bring street Smart back. So what that funding has enabled
is training up and done the country at the seven

(02:39):
circuits in New Zealand. It started with our three. It's
one hundred and forty nine dollars for a learned license
holder or a restricted license holder, or even a full license.
But you can have your learners, you need to bring
a caregiver along. So we're training two people for the
price of one. And we're giving these kids the knowledge

(03:03):
and the skill set that they need when we put
them on these roads as a sixteen year old by
themselves as a restricted driver, we say, go one hundred
k down the road, you're separated from oncoming traffic with
a white line, and we and we allow them to
go out there with no training. You know, they've got

(03:23):
to sit a driver's license, but that's fairy and when
you look at it and you go, gosh, where that's
just ludicrous. So we've put twelve hundred kids through this
program since Keelan was killed in March last year, and
we're deeply committed to actually making, you know, a generational

(03:45):
and legislational change around driver training and what we should
be doing as kiwis. But until we get that, that's
a process that might be longer than an RMA process.
So until we get to that point, thanks to you know,
Tony Quinn, Star Insure, Sabaru and many other partners, we're

(04:06):
doing what we can to get as many kids through
this program so they're better educated, they've got better tools
when they've got to make those split second decisions.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Absolutely, so you need funds to be able to subsidize
the driver training, hence the lottery. So how do people
get involved?

Speaker 3 (04:26):
Josie, Yeah, great, so super easy. They go to Street
Smart Lottery dot or Dot and Z. They can purchase
a ticket. There are one hundred dollars, but you're going
in the drawer to win one or three Savarro Savarus
and then these three incredible motorsport experiences that we've been
able to put up. So one of them is a

(04:47):
hot Lap with Leam Lawson Wow Violence on the twenty
first of December, so that's actually been drawn in four days.
It's a special draw because he's there for one day only.
So if one superstar he's deeply committed to New Zealand
and he jumped at the chance to be able to
help really support Street Smart and getting the striver training tickets.

(05:12):
You can also win a hot lap with Tony Glynn
and his Vulcan so there's only twenty four of them
in the world and that's taking place on the Cityfest
of January at Highlands at the New Zealand Grand Prix.
And then last but not least, there's four corporate tickets
in our private GT Lounge at Topol for the Supercars
Championship in April, so there's so much to win. It's

(05:34):
one hundred dollars. There's only ten thousand tickets, so the
olds are way better than you know lotto. And at
the same time you are helping us make a light
saving difference to our youth on our roads today, tomorrow
and in the future.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
So are that website again where people because they've only
got three days.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
Street Smart Lottery dot or dot mzed so that's three
days to the Lend Lawson experience, but the rest of
the lottery goes until the twein first of December. But
if you want to be in for all of the experience,
then get in today.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Lovely to talk as always, Josie, keep up the great work.
Josie Spallencio, Hireland's Motorsport.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
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