Goudie Sandra: Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Goudie Sandra: Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of National to support the Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill to a select committee. I also reiterate that we want good open dialogue at the select committee and for us to not close off any avenue for debate given some of the many excellent speeches made in the House today. I firstly acknowledge my own sorrow at the tragic death of Christchurch city councillor Graham Condon who was also a paralympian. In saying that I am mindful of the words of Maurice Williamson who said that we should not let emotion drive our decisions around how we address the serious concerns of youth deaths on our roads and the accidents that are caused by young drivers. Maurice also said he wanted statistics about 15-year-old drivers in other jurisdictions. I am not on the select committee that will be considering this bill but I hope that the select committee will explore the range of statistics. 
I noticed that the Bills Digest entry about the Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill lists a number of jurisdictions with identified driver-licensing ages. I notice that in Australia the driving age is around 16. In Canada in Quebec the driving age is around 15 or 16 but in Alberta it is actually 14 years which I thought was extraordinary—14 years! It would be very interesting to see what the statistics are from Alberta in regard to 14-year-olds with driver’s licences. I am not suggesting by any stretch of the imagination that we drop the age down but it would be interesting to see what the statistics are for that particular age group and what the conditions are around drivers’ licences in that area. The United States also has a driving age of 14 years in Arkansas and North Dakota and again it will be very interesting to see what the findings are from the research provided to the select committee for those areas. In France and Sweden the driving age is 16 in Great Britain it is 17 and in Germany it is 17 years and 5 months. 
I will now comment on some matters that were raised by David Bennett who gave an excellent critique of this bill and the matters pertaining to it. He asked clearly whether it was the 15-year-olds we need to be looking at because once we shift the age all we will do is shift the problem up into the 16-year-old age group. The problem that we are looking at is significant between the ages of 15 and 18. We all have a range of ideas about how the issues might be able to be dealt with. One thing that he only slightly touched on that I would like to expand on which I think could be a very simple solution to the problem in the main concerns the cc rating of the vehicles that young people are driving. In this legislation we are focusing on the individual driver—and yes there are some problems there around the licence period around the understanding of the rules and maybe around the level of responsibility etc.—but we are not talking enough in my view about the cc ratings of the vehicles that young people are driving. 
Our society has changed. We are a nation of petrol-heads—we love our cars and we have a lot more cars on the road. Our society is changing so that nowadays generally both parents are working. Parents do not have time to leave their jobs to come home to pick up their children when those children have come home on the bus and take them back to school or to pick children up from school because those children have had to stay behind for a music lesson or whatever. David Bennett is quite right. The problem does not necessarily apply just to young people in rural areas who are particularly challenged by lack of public transport; it also applies to our young people in urban areas because sometimes they go to schools that are well outside the area where they are living or that do not connect them to available public transport. 
I really would like to see consideration being given to the cc rating of vehicles. Why is it that a 15-year-old can drive a V8? Why should 15-year-olds have access to vehicles of that calibre of power and put them on the roads? 
Ron Mark 
: Some V8s have less horsepower than some 1300s. 
SANDRA GOUDIE 
: Now we are hearing that some V8s have less horsepower. Be that as it may we have young people who have ready access to vehicles. They like nothing better than to work on these vehicles—to soup them up—so that they can get the maximum power out of them get them on the roads congregate do wheelies and indulge in those sorts of activities. Those are a lot of the activities in actual fact that many people in the community do not like. It is all of the add-on activities that young people do with their vehicles that many people in the community do not like. 
I understand that in England young people are constrained to a vehicle with a lower cc rating. Maybe we should be looking at what sorts of changes that would make to the statistics for our young people who learn how to drive. Consider a small vehicle a small Volkswagen—I do not know; what car has a low cc rating? I am not very familiar with what is on the road these days. I am referring to the kinds of cars that we would call granny cars or shopping baskets. I cannot imagine young people going out to do wheelies and burnouts in a car park at night with a vehicle that can do only about 120 miles an hour. However our vehicles have changed incredibly— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Only 120 miles an hour! 
SANDRA GOUDIE 
: It does not bear thinking about. I still think that looking at the power of the vehicles that young people drive is worthy of consideration. 
As I said before every single one of us has a whole range of ideas. We all have different opinions about the solution to the problem but I note that Paul Adams made some very sensible comments. Of course he was a former national rally champion. I happened to have the occasion to be a passenger in a vehicle he was driving and I found him to be an absolutely superb driver. He considers that training enforcements and boundaries all need to be in place. In picking up the idea of enforcement I do not know how many members have heard stories of young drivers who have been stopped found to be in breach of their learner licence conditions by having passengers in their vehicle while driving and have had a traffic officer or a policeman give them a warning and send them on their way. I think that enforcement is a big issue and it will be very interesting to see how these statistics will be viewed at the select committee. Again it was David Bennett who raised that very excellent point because we need to look at all the aspects around the conditions for these accidents. Is it about the breaching of the rules? We need to look at how much young drivers are breaching the rules and what those breaches are. I am only just starting to look at a very very small part of all of the different aspects relating to this bill. 
The New Zealand Automobile Association Inc. also made some sensible recommendations which have been reiterated here. It recommends doubling the duration of the learner licence from 6 to 12 months. That provision is in the bill and I think it is a sensible change to the rules. The association also identified that attitudinal training might be able to be incorporated with the defensive driving course. I think there needs to be a little more emphasis on that and that we need to make restricted drivers’ licensing tougher. 
All of these matters will be discussed in the select committee. I have been thoroughly impressed by my most excellent colleagues Maurice Williamson and David Bennett who are members of the select committee. They will be giving due consideration to this legislation and wanting to explore the statistics. They will want to see how they relate not only to 15-year-olds but to 16 to 18-year-olds and they will not want to limit what the possibilities might be in terms of addressing the issues. I do not want to see 15-year-olds disadvantaged when they do not have access to public transport and when both their parents are working regardless of whether their environment is urban or rural. I do not think they should necessarily be penalised by the actions of a few. The statistics will actually show us where the troubles are occurring. So I am happy to support this bill and I am looking forward to further debate and seeing the statistics. Thank you.