Buying a dodgy car could be a death sentence for a young driver

Friday, 4 January 2019

 Opinion: Having just ended a year with the highest road toll in more than a decade, here's a resolution worth making.

If you are helping a teen driver buy a car, avoid potential death traps and steer them towards the safest model you or they can afford.

Having shepherded them through childhood, belting them into kiddie seats, teaching them to cross the road and ride a bike, don't throw away all that effort by putting them into a vehicle that is the equivalent of a coffin on wheels.

In recent times the NZ Transport Agency has gotten a lot wrong - amongst other things, its failure to enforce safety regulations led to the recall of more than 25,000 vehicles with suspect warrants of fitness (WOFs).

**READ MORE:

* It will be 'decades' before New Zealand's road toll drops substantially

* Vision Zero: Median barriers coming

* Vision Zero: Older cars are killing us

* Death in the office: coping with a workmate's death on our roads**

But to give it credit, the agency's latest road safety advertisement about car buying for inexperienced drivers is a cracker.

Hard hitting, yet humorous, it shows that cool or budget models aren't such a great buy if the occupants end up in body bags after a crash.

In place of a slick car salesperson glossing over any shortcomings, there are real people – a paramedic, an ex-first responder, and a panel beater – who have cleaned up the mess when vehicles crash.

They tell it like it is. Instead of the hard sell, customers get the 'unsell.'

Without sufficient airbags your neck will snap like a pencil. Poor design will see the engine coming up to meet you in a head on collision, or result in the car turning inside out when hit from the side.

Modern cars are safer and we have tightened up on driver education, raising the driver licensing age from 15 to 16 in 2011.

Between 1985 and 2016 there was a 70 per cent reduction in the number of young drivers under age of 24 involved in fatal vehicle crashes, but the statistics are still grim.

According to a 2017 transport agency report, drivers in the 15 to 19-year age group were six to eight times more likely to crash per 100 million kilometres travelled than the lowest risk group of the same gender.

Things improved with age, but the crash rate of 20 to 24-year-olds was still three to four times higher than lowest risk groups.

If I sound a tad evangelical about this, I have good reason.

My husband and I decided we'd spend the equivalent of a decent Aussie holiday to help our sons buy safer cars, and it was an investment that paid off big time. 

A couple of years ago our eldest son, then 22, was T-boned by a red light runner who shunted his Mazda Demio into a power pole .

In the split second before impact he thought gratefully of the airbag that would see him walk away without a scratch, even though his car was written off.

The other driver, an uninsured teen on a learner licence, suffered a broken leg.

My son's insurance did not fully cover the cost of a replacement car, a Mazda2 with six air bags, so we shelled out for a share of that too.

The power pole still bears the mark of impact, and whenever I pass it I'm pleased we were able to bankroll our son into a safer vehicle.

I try not to think about the alternative - that we could have missed out on seeing him graduate, travel widely, win a scholarship to do research in France, and be well on the way to completing a Phd. All that potential could have been wasted.

Which is why I feel mad as hell when I hear financially comfortable parents boasting about helping their offspring buy an old banger that will do them to run around in until they can afford something better.

Lisa Buckingham, the paramedic in the transport agency advertisement, understands where I'm coming from.

As the Franklin area manager for St John Ambulance she still works shifts and sees plenty of evidence that safer vehicles make a difference for young drivers who lack experience at the wheel.

'You can buy them a cheap car and save that money for the funeral because that's the potential.' 

But reading up on the safety ratings for used vehicles can be daunting.

Those given the highest scores are often European models way beyond the budgets of most families to buy, let alone service.

On the rightcar website administered by the transport agency, the Audi A3, BMW 1 Series, and Volkswagen Golf / Jetta are the only models in the small car category to get a five star rating for the protection they offer to drivers, other motorists and pedestrians in a collision.

The eight vehicles meriting four stars include a Toyota Prius, Subaru Imprezas, a Hyundai i30, and a Ford Focus.

The site claims you are at least 90 per cent more likely to be killed or seriously injured in a 1-star vehicle than in a 5-star one, and at least 60 per cent more likely in a 2-star vehicle.

However, it also makes the point that bigger or more expensive does not necessarily mean better, and with significant safety differences in a price range, it pays to do your research.

Cars with higher ratings usually have things like front, side, curtain and knee airbags, crumple zones to absorb crash energy and stronger cabin construction.

Buckingham agrees it's about buying the safest car you can afford.

'Not everyone can afford to buy a tank for their children to keep them safe.

'It's not about spending ridiculous amounts of money and getting yourself into financial debt.

'If there are two cars that are the same amount, that one may not be as pretty, but it's safer.'

Just last week she attended a crash where, as she describes in the transport agency advertisement, the engine ended up in the foot well, critically injuring the occupants.

Buckingham is hot on vehicle maintenance too and urges parents to educate their kids about the importance of good tyre tread.

'You wouldn't put blocks of ice on the bottom of your running shoes and go for a sprint, and it's exactly the same thing; you have no ability to control a car with bald tyres.'

We remind our sons to get their cars serviced regularly, and usually chip in a contribution so they go to a decent garage, which is why the current state of warrant of fitness (WOF) checks is such a concern.

In the course of researching the agency's less than stellar auditing standards for WOF testers, I've heard some horror stories.

A garage manager I talked to was appalled when an inspector at a supposedly reputable WOF outlet passed tyres she regarded as dangerously worn on a car regularly driven by the owner's teenage daughter. 'I wouldn't have put my kids in that car if you paid me to.'

With some garages charging as little as $20 for a WOF, we need to ensure our teens understand you get what you pay for, and if lazy or unqualified staff miss or ignore defects, they could be signing your death warrant.

The social cost of crashes takes into account loss of life and quality of life, lost productivity; and medical, legal, court and property damage bills.

In 2016, the total social costs of crashes where 15 to 24-year-olds had primary responsibility was $1 billion.

That adds up to a heap of grief for all concerned.

Crashes are often a combination of factors – inexperience, road conditions, and insane risk taking by other drivers.

But if we can help save lives and reduce injuries by encouraging teens to consider the safety aspects of a vehicle as well as its aesthetics and its price tag, we should do it.

For first responders like Buckingham who deal with the death and destruction on a daily basis, the hope is that the 2019 road toll will be lower than the 382 who died last year.

'All my officers, we're sick of seeing it … it's so avoidable.'