Driving lessons merge into classroom studies

By STUART DYE, education reporter

Every teenager in the country could learn to drive as part of the school curriculum if a pilot project proves a success.

Porirua College in Wellington will become the first school in the country to put driver education into its core curriculum when it launches Drive Force tomorrow.

The project offers a mix of practical driving and road code study leading to a New Zealand Qualifications Authority-approved national certificate in light motor vehicle driving.

About 120 year-12 and year-13 students will take the course this year at Porirua.

As well as giving them a firmer grounding in road safety, it is hoped the course can drive down the number of crashes involving young people.

If the pilot is successful, the AA Driver Education Foundation, which is behind the scheme, hopes it can eventually be taken to every school in the country.

Foundation chief executive Peter Sheppard said young males were more lethal than any other group on the road and up to seven times more likely than middle-aged drivers to cause an injury crash.

"Crash trends involving young drivers have improved over the last two decades - something the Land Transport Safety Authority puts down to driver education programmes," said Mr Sheppard.

"We would like to replicate the Drive Force model in every school in the country."

The programme has cost $55,000, which has been raised by the foundation.

Students will have five practical sessions, backed by theory lessons on risk, responsibility, attitude and values. In addition, the course will form part of curriculum English and maths projects, with pupils researching accidents and road safety in the community.

The final qualification will not replace the full driving licence, but will run alongside it.

Drive Force will be launched tomorrow as part of World Health Day. This year the World Health Organisation has dedicated the day to road safety in recognition of research showing road traffic injuries will be the third leading contributor to the global burden of injury and disease if trends continue.

The Porirua College project has been backed by ACC, the police and the Land Transport Safety Authority.

The college's assistant principal, Andy Frazer, said driver education as part of the curriculum would result in safer drivers, and raise students' levels of competence, confidence and self-worth.

"[It] will have a positive effect on broadening the students' horizons, goals and aspirations in life and increase future employment opportunities," he said.

Associate Transport Minister Harry Duynhoven said it was vital young people got professional driver training.

"It is starting them off on a much better foot than many of us had, sitting next to mum or dad or big brother and learning their bad habits."

It would be enormously expensive to introduce the programme to every school, but driver training in schools made sense.


YOUNG DRIVERS

15 to 24-year-olds make up 16 per cent of the driving population but accounted for 28 per cent of crashes between 1999 and 2001.

The social cost of these crashes is estimated at $850 million.