Get older rental cars off road: NZ First

New Zealand First's Fletcher Tabuteau says rental fleets should be brought up to at least 2004 safety standards. Photo / Ben Fraser

New Zealand First tourism spokesman and Rotorua-based list MP Fletcher Tabuteau wants old rental vehicles taken off our roads to improve driver safety for tourists and locals.

He said the idea was one of many being proposed by his party to try and put a stop to the recent trend of accidents involving tourists driving vehicles around the country.

"Rental fleets should be brought up to at least 2004 safety standards. Those vehicles should have safety technology like side impact air bags and anti-lock breaking as standard which would mean tourists are much safer if they do have an accident."

He said his party wanted to discuss a number of ideas to improve tourist safety on the road with Minister of Transport Simon Bridges.

Those ideas included a mandatory stand down period for drivers after long haul flights, the use of better and more modern in-car technology and a test for drivers from overseas who are not used to driving in New Zealand conditions.

"If tourists do continue to die on our roads, that will definitely put them (others) off coming, we don't want to make it harder for them, it's the safety of all drivers we are concerned about," he said.

Rotorua MP Todd McClay said he had not seen the detail of New Zealand First's proposal, however every vehicle on New Zealand roads has to meet standards, through Warrant of Fitness examinations, to ensure it is road worthy, he said.

"There's no clear evidence that driving behaviour is being influenced by the age of the rental vehicle fleet.

"The government does recognise that people are concerned with poor driving behaviour on challenging roads in and around popular tourist destinations, and that is why the Visiting Drivers Signature Project (VDSP) was set up almost a year ago.

"Last week the Government announced the VDSP will be extended and a number of safety measures fast-tracked including hundreds of kilometres of road edge and centre line rumble strips, thousands of kilometres of highways being marked with keep left arrows and an additional 165km of safety barriers in the accident prone areas."

Maori Party co-leader and Waiariki MP Te Ururoa Flavell said the three main drivers for reducing the road toll were education, enforcement and engineering.

"The Maori Party believes we should do all we can to continue efforts to further reduce the road toll and we don't believe that single measures such as those proposed by Fletcher for tourists and the rental cars they rent, will have the desired effect.

"I spend a lot of time travelling up and down the country and I see my fair share of bad drivers. I can't honestly say that a greater proportion are tourists, and we should be careful to point the finger at only a few, and make generalisations.

"We are far too aware of how this type of attitude has negatively affected Maori. Given that tourist drivers will have had less exposure to our roads and driving conditions, I support doing all we can to encourage better awareness by all our drivers on the roads that tourists are behind the wheel so that more caution can be exercised around them. I intend to take this issue up with ministerial colleagues and others," he said.