Vision Zero: Brakes applied to government pledge to provide students free driving lessons and defensive driving courses
Monday, 17 December 2018
The drastic scaling back of Labour's $50m per year 'School Leavers Toolkit' to a $1.7m programme without any driver training programme has disappointed a national driving school manager.
Labour's pre-election pledge, made by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in August last year, was to offer every student five hours of professional driving lessons, a defensive driving course, and free tests for the learners and restricted licences before they left school.
It was primarily to be a means of ensuring students had a licence so they could get a job, and be mobile, but also of making them and other road users safer.
Ministry of Education deputy secretary early learning and student development Ellen MacGregor-Reid said a large component of the $50m cost was driver training
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That was 'now being managed separately' from the toolkit.
$1.7m in seed funding for the remaining toolkit components was provided in Budget 2018, with any further investment to be considered as part of future Budgets.
'The School Leavers' Toolkit …
is complementary to an agreement contained in the Coalition Agreement between the Labour Party and New Zealand First to expand access to driver education for secondary school students.'
She said the Ministry had been working with agencies and organisations already delivering driver training initiatives to understand the best way to expand access for young people.
Education Minister Chris Hipkins said it was 'a good start', with the toolkit to be built on 'over time'.
'Some of the services that were originally envisaged to be part of the toolkit will be delivered through different programmes instead of necessarily being branded as toolkit services.'
AA Driving School general manager Roger Venn said he was disappointed to hear the plan had been so drastically altered.
'With $50m we really could have done something. I'd worked it out at about $800 a student, and that would have allowed us to have done something useful.
'It looks like they've walked away from one of the issues that prompted the toolkit; the lack of driver training due to affordability.
'It's a terrible loss and a huge backtrack on what was a very encouraging sign from the Government that they did understand the issues faced by those not having a licence.'
Last year a study found that between 2014 and 2016 drivers aged between 15-24 were over-represented in the number of fatal and serious injury crashes.
Nearly half of those aged 15-19 involved in fatal crashes - and a third of those aged 20-24 - were on learner of restricted licenses.
Venn said a major weakness in our licensing system was the lack of mandatory training.
'If you compare it to best practice overseas, such as those in Scandinavia, you have to have a logbook of practice both with professional trainer and with a supervisor. In Australia there is mandated training in some states.'
He said he would like to see compulsory professional driving lessons with an NZTA-approved driving instructor for a minimum of eight hours.
Venn said there was a gulf between knowing how to drive and knowing how to drive safely.
Ministry of Transport manager of mobility and safety Brent Johnston said the Graduated Driver Licensing System incentivised driver training by allowing people who took approved training courses to advance to the next licence step in less time.
Changes in 2014 to the Graduated Driver Licensing System put a five-year-limit on new learner and restricted licenses.
If a driver does not progress from restricted to full licence within five years they have to sit a theory test again to keep their licence.