Fitzsimons Jeanette: Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:642;Page:12533] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I welcome the opportunity to have a debate about this issue of young people driving because it is an issue that has simmered in the public mind for some time. It is an issue that shows up in the letters to the editor and the letters from constituents. The Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill is a really good opportunity to get this issue out in the open and widely discussed and I congratulate Peter Dunne on bringing it to the House. 
A knee-jerk response to individual tragic cases is never a good context in which to make legislation but sometimes those cases are an indication of a much wider problem and that is why we should consider this. Not all members of the Green caucus are convinced that this bill is necessary and that it is not just another beat-up on young people but all of us are very happy to see it go to a select committee to listen to the evidence and to make up our minds for later votes on the bill based on the evidence that is brought to that select committee. 
Figures provided to us by the Ministry of Transport which I actually requested a little while ago before the bill was put forward knowing this was an issue on which we were going to form a view were quite convincing. I have found in those figures that 15 to 24-year-old drivers are at fault in three-quarters of the crashes that they are involved in and that those crashes caused by 15 to 24-year-old drivers account for one-third of the total social cost from crashes. The figures also show that the lower the starting age for driving the more crashes people have and that the dangerous point is the first 6 months of solo driving before they have had a lot of experience. That suggests to me that a measure to provide for people to have a lot more driving hours’ experience before they drive solo could be a very good change. 
Ministry of Transport figures show that the 15 to 19-year-old age group is six times more likely to crash per 100 million kilometres driven than drivers in the 45 to 49-year-old age group. That is a very significant difference. It seems that the learner stage is relatively safe but there is a period after that when people are allowed to drive solo where perhaps there is an attitudinal problem that takes over combined with inexperience and this is where the risk occurs. So a longer period for the learner phase before solo driving and taking passengers kicks in may also be a useful way of addressing that. 
It is hard to argue that this bill would not reduce serious crashes and deaths. One might say that that is an obvious reason why we should pass it but we could actually reduce serious crashes and death by banning driving altogether but society has decided that there is a trade-off between the road toll and mobility. So the real question is whether the trade-off that we are making for 15-year-olds is actually a worse trade-off than the one we are making for the rest of the population. There is some evidence that it may be. 
I will consider another consequence of 15-year-old driver crashes which will never show up in statistics and that is the impact a crash has on the life of a young person knowing that at an age of inexperience and perhaps with a lack of driving skills he or she killed another person. I think the impact of that on somebody’s life forever is very significant and we should do what we can to prevent people being left with that legacy which must mar the rest of their lives. 
The arguments against the bill in terms of freedom and mobility focus on young people needing to drive cars for their daily activity—for work for school or for social activities. I have to say I have no sympathy at all for the argument that young people in cities need to drive cars to school. There are adequate public transport systems in cities there are bicycles there are all the ways that we got to school when we were young. I do not sympathise with that argument. But there are some differences in rural communities—and I happen to live in one—where public transport is not available and where distances from activities are much greater. I remember what it was like being a parent ferrying 15 and 16-year-old children to music lessons because one cannot easily take a cello on a bus or a bike and looking forward to the date when my son would get his driver’s licence. At the same time I knew he was actually quite poorly coordinated and he and I made an agreement that he would not even seek his licence until he was 18 because he was a very accident-prone person. So I have dealt with those trade-offs I guess in my own experience as well. 
The point is sometimes made that if it is not possible for a young person to get a heavy-vehicle driver’s licence in a rural area then some employment opportunities are restricted for that person. That may be true but of course a heavy truck is even more of a lethal weapon in the hands of somebody inexperienced than a light car is and we have to consider safety there as well. I think it would be very useful if the select committee explore the idea of exemptions in certain circumstances—where a young driver would have to go through additional training like an extended defensive driving course for example and would have to demonstrate a high level of skills in order to get the ability to drive solo earlier than the law otherwise states because of employment reasons or because of where that young driver lives. It would be very interesting to hear submissions on that view and I hope the public will comment on that. There could be a way of tightening up here reducing accidents for people who have alternatives and providing greater safety and greater flexibility for people where there are no alternatives. 
I look forward to the debate in the select committee. The Greens are happy to support this bill in its first reading; we are still divided about what we would like to do after that.