Duynhoven Harry: Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Duynhoven Harry: Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Minister for Transport Safety) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill. Labour will be supporting this bill going to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. 
I want to comment briefly on what Peter Dunne has said. One of the key phrases he used was “the right”. New Zealanders have always had the idea that they have a right to drive. I have a 15-year-old daughter so I am very aware of the pressure that parents come under on this issue. But with rights come responsibilities. I think this bill has come at a good time. 
The Government is currently considering a package of measures to create a safer environment for young New Zealanders to learn to drive in and to develop into competent and safe drivers. I think some of the issues raised by the Hon Maurice Williamson were very appropriate and I hope they will be thoroughly considered by the select committee alongside the package of measures the Government is about to announce. 
I welcome consideration and discussion of the move to raise the minimum licensing age to 16 and to extend the length of the learner licence period from 6 months to 12 months as part of that package. Currently our young people pay in my view far too high a price for the opportunity to drive especially in the first 6 months of gaining a restricted licence. Traffic crashes are the single greatest killer of 15 to 24-year-olds and the leading cause of permanent injury for that age group. As the Hon Peter Dunne said last year young drivers were involved in 121 fatal traffic crashes and 813 serious-injury crashes. 
Fifteen to 19-year-olds are six times more likely to crash than you or me. It is also worth remembering that over the last 4 years fatal crashes involving 15-year-old drivers have averaged two a year—one of which was the tragic case the Minister mentioned in which three young people died—where a 15-year-old driver was deemed to be at fault. Of course we still do not know the cause of the latest two crashes. 
There is a strong commitment on all sides of the House to do something about this and I commend the Hon Peter Dunne on his launching of this bill into Parliament. It is essential that we create a safer environment for our young people to develop into fully competent drivers. The Government is fully committed to doing this and it is part of the reason why we have set such ambitious road safety targets in our Road Safety to 2010 strategy. People will be aware that there was a significant consultation programme in the Road Safety to 2010 strategy which has been running for about 18 months now. A considerable amount of feedback is about young drivers. 
 Raising the minimum licensing age to 16—that is the age at which one can begin to learn to drive—and extending the length of the learner-licensing period to 12 months will not however on their own create a safe enough environment. The greatest risk period for young drivers is the first 6 months of driving solo—that is when they are driving without supervision by a qualified driver. In that period—those first 6 months—as Peter Dunne said young drivers are estimated to be about seven times more likely to have a crash than in the period when they were beginner drivers and were supervised. 
The risk of crashing declines rapidly after the 6-month period. But the learning curve to achieve the risk profile of say the average 30-year-old is long. It takes about 10 years to achieve that sort of risk profile. So we need to put in place a range of measures that will shift our young people along the driver learning curve at a faster rate and with less risk of fatality or permanent injury. In particular delaying the beginning of solo driving by 6 months will allow for a greater amount of supervised driving practice to occur. 
Experience in Sweden which is the safest driving environment in the world has shown that increasing supervised driving practice to about 120 hours before a young person can drive solo reduces the crash rate by about 40 percent. I am talking about not simply raising the age but actually extending the supervised driving practice period. We are currently considering a range of initiatives alongside raising the minimum licensing age to 16 and extending the length of the learner-licensing period from 6 months to 12 months. In particular we are considering strengthening the practical driver testing regime. We are not convinced that the current two-test system adequately prepares young drivers for their first months of solo driving. The first test which in our view is the critical one focuses too much on basic technical driving skills and tends to ignore other important factors that determine driving behaviour. 
We are also considering whether the current enforcement regime for the graduated driver-licensing system is working effectively and while I am on that issue I want to say to this House that our graduated driver-licensing system—the concept—is much admired around the world. That is not to say that it cannot be improved. I believe that it certainly can be improved and I am looking forward to the debate on this because I believe we can make substantial improvements. I am aware that non-compliance with the conditions of learner and restricted licences is relatively widespread. 
Last year I had the opportunity to spend a complete night with a traffic patrol on duty in the Wellington area. Out of the 19 cars we stopped for various things—like not having a tail light or speeding or running a red light—seven I think were driving outside the conditions of a restricted licence. They either had passengers or they were driving outside the permitted hours etc. When I commented on what I thought was a high incidence the traffic officer said it was actually a low number. Normally the incidence of people breaching the driver-licensing conditions of restricted licences was higher than that. The key conditions are the restrictions on carrying passengers and on night-time driving and these conditions are critical for lowering the risk profile of young drivers. 
As I stated earlier this Government is fully committed to creating a safer environment for our young people to develop into fully competent drivers. It has been one of the themes of my career as a parliamentarian and as the Minister for Transport Safety it is one of the things I take extremely seriously. We support the referral of this bill to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and we will be looking very closely at the debate that occurs at the select committee once the views of public submitters are known. 
We will be particularly interested to hear from our rural communities. We are told that increasing the minimum licensing age to 16 raises issues for communities where the availability of transport alternatives is limited. Another issue is whether people are driving for work purposes or for entertainment and leisure purposes. We will also be very interested in the feedback from parents road safety experts and young people on the full range of measures that are needed to keep our young drivers safe. This is a very serious issue for the community an issue that I hope Parliament will debate really seriously. If the beginning of this debate is any indication I think there is goodwill to come to a very good outcome. 
There are many countries—much of Europe—where for the first year or so of one’s driver’s licence the only vehicle one can ride is a low-powered scooter or motorcycle. That could solve the mobility problems of some of our rural people who require a vehicle to get to work or football practice or whatever it is they are involved in. That might be a possible way forward. I think we should look at a range of alternatives and I hope the select committee will do that. 
I look forward very much to the public debate. If the debate is of as good a quality as the debate we have had on the See You There—Safe As programme I think it will be a valuable experience for New Zealand. It is well time this issue was thoroughly examined not only by the House but by society as a whole. The issue is that yes there is a right to mobility but with that right comes a responsibility to be a good safe young driver and that is what I want to see become the culture of New Zealand—as it is in most other countries. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker.