Dean Scanlen: Enforce stricter licensing rules to lower road death toll

Driving is a privilege, not a right. Photo / APN

The Transport Agency and the Government are proposing to tighten the driver licensing rules.

Strong licensing rules are vital if we are to cut our unacceptable road toll.

What is wrong with our current rules? I would ask: what isn't wrong?

Here are a few examples of the madhouse that is our road network: An article in our local paper reported statistics about speeding infringements - more than 38,000 drivers were caught speeding in Whangarei District alone in the past five years.

About 300 of those were travelling at more than 40km/h above the speed limit.

Vehicles regularly zoom around the loop in the road near my address, which is a 50km/h speed zone.

One teenage boy smashed into the tree in front of our house a few years ago. The skid marks ran for more than 50m and the car was written off.

I saw a car full of teenagers spin out in front of me three years ago as I was en route to my home. They had lost control on a bend in a 50km/h speed zone - a bend that is easy to negotiate at 50km/h.

My sister-in-law, Kay Wolfe, and two other people were hit by a car last month while cycling near Morrinsville. All three were killed. The car was travelling on the wrong side of the road but the driver is alive and well.

This is only the tiny tip of a huge iceberg.

Driving is a potentially deadly activity and often is deadly. It is a privilege, not a right. Many drivers are treating driving as a game, have little or no respect for the rules of the road or do not drive with the necessary care and attention. These people simply shouldn't be behind the wheel of a car. The existing - and proposed rules - will generally not prevent such people being allowed to drive.

Why? First, our practical driving tests for cars currently involve an officer sitting beside the candidate. Candidates will be on their best behaviour when tested in this environment. Many people won't be on their best behaviour when they are on their own or with their mates.

Second, the requirement for learner drivers to be supervised by an experienced driver is necessary but far from sufficient. The supervisor might not be a particularly responsible or careful driver themselves.

While under supervision, many learners will not encounter all, or even many, of the situations that cause a lot of serious crashes.

There's no guarantee the learner will get enough opportunities to drive before they become eligible to drive on their own.

Finally young people, in particular, are prone to pressure from their peers to drive irresponsibly.

How can we make sure people have the necessary bona fides to drive safely before they are granted the privilege of being a licensed driver?

How about rules that include the following:

Before young drivers are allowed on the road on their own, or previous driving offenders are allowed back on the road after losing their licences, they should be subjected to rigorous examination, at their expense, of their maturity and attitude, as those affect their ability to drive responsibly and carefully. The evaluation should be carried out by a psychologist trained specifically in this area. Their skills at handling vehicles in critical situations should be tested, ideally on a track, in a simulation of all conditions a driver is likely to encounter including slippery surfaces, poor visibility, sudden isolated bends or skids.

Tighten the rules regarding the loss of licences, either by increasing the demerit points incurred for driving offences or dropping the upper limit at which a licence is lost. Such rules will benefit all road users including the most vulnerable - pedestrians and cyclists.

Granted, such rules would be expensive for prospective drivers - but nowhere near as expensive as the awful carnage we currently have on our roads.

I believe we can't afford not to put rules like this in place.

If you disagree with this approach, perhaps you might ask yourself whether you should continue to be allowed behind the wheel of a car?

Dean Scanlen is an independent professional transport engineer in Whangarei.