Roy Heather: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Roy Heather: Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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Hon HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the first reading of the Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. ACT will be supporting this bill to go to the select committee although we have a number of specific concerns about some provisions of this bill that we would like to see raised there. 
As the Minister of Transport has identified New Zealand has a serious problem with road safety. When we compare our statistics—not confining ourselves to young people but across the board—with those of other countries we see that we are not doing well. I have often been heard saying that there is no one silver bullet. The three things we should be doing are what I call the three Es. The first is enforcement of the current laws. We should be taking those very seriously and doing a better job. The second is education about driving particularly for our young people but not exclusively. The third is engineering. Certainly the overseas experience is that particularly in Europe when there are well-engineered roads the road toll drops significantly. 
Here in New Zealand too many Kiwis in particular our young people take a somewhat reckless attitude to driving. This attitude is all too evident in the statistics. When we look at them we see that we far outstrip our nearest neighbour Australia in annual road toll fatality rates. ACT is pleased that this bill identifies a number of the core factors in these fatality statistics. The bill attempts to crack down on those who have not just once or twice but time and again shown themselves to be irresponsible behind the wheel. It allows the courts to impose an interlock sentence on those who have been repeatedly caught driving under the influence of alcohol. The bill also doubles the maximum period of imprisonment from 5 years to 10 years for those found guilty of causing death while driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol or of driving recklessly. Certainly we are in favour of that move. Such measures are to be applauded; in fact they are long overdue. They will target those who have shown scant regard for the safety of themselves and more particularly of others when driving. 
The ACT Party has some concerns as I said about parts of this bill. The concentration has largely been around the minimum driving age. We are not convinced that the benefits of increasing the minimum driving age from 15 to 16 years outweigh the negatives. I think a large number of factors need to be thought of when we consider this change and we welcome the opportunity to discuss them at the select committee. 
One thing I have always been personally quite swayed by is the experience of the insurance industry. It needs to look very carefully of course at the patterns of behaviour so that it can put in place the premiums that it charges. I remember reading quite some time ago—I need to dig this evidence out again—that the danger period is not solely dependent on age but is when a person has been driving for around 100 hours. They drive quite carefully to start with and with a little more caution perhaps than they do once they become more confident drivers. That is when the accident rates start to spike. It does not seem that the starting age impacts very much on that pattern of behaviour; it is the 100 hours beyond the starting point for that driver that is the period of higher risk. Those things need to be looked at in detail at the select committee; I am hoping to sit in on some of those discussions. 
For many people particularly those in our rural communities cars are the only means of transport available. In rural areas there is simply no public transport system—no buses and trains—available and most often no taxis either. I grew up in a very small rural community in East Otago where everybody usually started driving the day they hit 15 if not before. Certainly kids who grew up on farms were driving well before that day. My experience was that those who started driving before the age of 15 on private property usually turned out to be very good and safe drivers. 
Rural communities have difficulty with roads that are not always up to scratch and we need to take a large number of factors into consideration but we cannot ignore the fact that the lives of young people are impacted on if the minimum driving age rises to 16. Depriving young people of the ability to drive in many cases deprives them of employment and of sporting social and educational opportunities. That consideration must not be left out of the mix when we consider what we will do with this legislation. 
Although there can be no doubt that young people are overrepresented in accident statistics whether simply pushing their right to drive back by 1 year will solve the problem is questionable. Certainly if I come back to my 100-hour rule the answer to that question would be no. It means that we would just delay the same patterns by a year. All of those things need to be investigated carefully at the select committee. Raising the minimum driving age to 16 is an approach that will disadvantage thousands of young Kiwis through no fault of their own. 
I go back again to what is most effective when we look at how we tackle our shocking statistics on the road. The three Es are very important beginning with the enforcement of the laws that we already have. In many cases we race to put laws in place when very good laws already exist but are not enforced adequately. Rather than rush to put more laws on the statute book we need to look at what we have make sure that there are enforcement opportunities and make sure that they are being routinely taken care of. 
Education is also hugely important. It is easy to say that but it is the long-term approach and it is shown to change behaviour over time. Probably the best example is defensive driving courses. Those courses will be maintained in the new legislation. There will be the incentive of decreasing the period of restricted driving for those who undertake a defensive driving course. My understanding is that at the moment those on learner licences are not able to participate in defensive driving courses but this legislation will allow that to be a viable option as it should be. There is no wrong time to educate our young people about driving alcohol consumption and the like. 
The third thing is that we must not allow this legislation to let us take our foot off the accelerator on engineering—on the fixing up of our roads. I am pleased to say that that is happening. I had a holiday in the South Island at the end of last year. It is an area that I am well used to. I was amazed at how much better the roads are now than they were even about 5 years ago. That is continuing but we must make sure that engineering and maintaining safe roads continues unabated. 
The ACT Party will support this bill’s referral to a select committee. We will support that referral to allow the select committee to study the various provisions in the bill investigate what has worked investigate what works well overseas that we could adopt here and come up with a final bill that will adequately address the serious problems New Zealand has with road safety without unnecessarily and unfairly targeting those who are driving responsibly. It is very important that we get the balance right and we hope to make a contribution at the select committee to achieve that balance. Thank you.