Page 3411 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 22 August 2018
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in terms of its graduated licensing scheme. We are close to if not the most lax jurisdiction in the country. The graduated driver licensing reforms I have put out for consultation are the improvements recommended nationally by road safety experts and that have been accepted in some form by all other jurisdictions. It is interesting that these have been described as radical by media and others when what we are seeking to do is bring the ACT into line with other jurisdictions.
I also note that the restrictions that have been canvassed in the discussion paper—for example the restricted late-night driving and the limited peer-age passengers—would apply only to first year P-platers. Miss C Burch in her remarks today talked about all P platers. We are focussing on the most risky period of driving when the restrictions will have the best road safety benefits.
Let’s talk about this in the context of freedom. People go from having no licence to having an L-plate, where someone has to sit next to them every time they get in the vehicle and drive it, with extensive restrictions, to having first-year P-plates, then having P2 plates with fewer restrictions and then having a full licence. That is why it is called the graduated licensing system: we gradually give people a more permissive licence that accords with their increasing levels of experience.
It is also important to note—this has always been envisaged—that if the proposal were implemented it would exempt first-year P-plate drivers who needed to drive for reasons such as work, study, or emergency trips to hospital. This is how this sort of initiative operates in other jurisdictions. As Miss Burch noted in her comments, that is exactly what the consultation paper asked people to give us feedback on. Anyone who has listened to my media interviews would be conscious that I have been really explicit in saying we need to make sure this is practical and does not unduly restrict people’s ability to get about.
Miss Burch in her motion and publicly has claimed that there is no evidence for the proposal to support restricting first-year P-plater driving times at night as has been canvassed in the discussion paper. This claim is not only factually wrong, but it undermines all the work that road safety advocates are doing to try to advance evidence-based policy to help the community understand and accept road safety interventions to ultimately prevent serious injuries and the loss of lives.
Let me talk about some of the evidence that has been put together on this. Younger drivers may be fully licensed, but they are a high risk category due to their cognitive development, their relative inexperience behind the wheel, their risk-taking choices and their pattern of driving behaviours. Due to inexperience, provisional drivers of any age pose a high risk of being involved in crashes, especially during the first six months of independent driving.
In the ACT provisional drivers represent only 6.5 per cent of all active car licence holders, but they accounted for 14.3 per cent of drivers involved in fatal accidents in the five-year period 2011-15. It is worth reflecting on what other jurisdictions have found. In New South Wales, a 2011 Auditor-General performance review found fatal crash involvement rates for young drivers under 26 declined by 51 per cent from 1999-2000 to 2009-10 compared to a reduction of 35 per cent for drivers aged
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