Have Your Say – Polls
We understand clearly that the only reason for our existence is to represent the voice of the people in our parliament. We believe that any party that is not constantly in touch with the views of the people is simply not doing its job. In this space you can read what others think on key issues, and you can let us know your views.Should the driving age be raised?
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Firstly, I don't believe that the farmers or any other group should be treated differently.
The fact is that young drivers are disproportionately represented in the accident stats. The changes between 15 and 17 or 18 in physical, emotional, and maturity terms are significant, for most, and that can be the difference between life and death.
And it's not just the drivers, it's their young passengers and those in other vehicles that get caught up in it.
Or, if you don't want to raise the age then change the process so that anyone under 18 or 20 even, who wants a licence, has to complete x hours of professional driving training (from a licenced instructor), a defensive driving course, and a rigorous examination.
It's not about what people are allowed to do at different ages, it's about life and death, for more than the indivdual concerned.
Posted by Keith Mockett 11.53AM, 13 Apr 2010Postponing the bill for a year or more would make no difference, as it will not take a year to get public transport up and sufficiently running to resolve the transport problem.
NZQA should get involved like they are when you obtain a class 2 licence.
The results could be made easy when they would only revue the concepts where there are no restriction licences and the way people are trained to do driving, advance driving where you get taught how to deal with road issues, this i believe was tried here in NZ and found that drivers were abusing the teaching. Wonder how you abuse the driving skills that is meant to prepare you for most road issues.
Posted by Carel Kirstein 4.23PM, 28 Nov 2009i think that you should atleast leave the bill from being put up for 1 year so that people who are thinking about leaving home can either get the license or make other arrangements for transport especially those who live in rural areas as there isnt the jobs out of town as there is in town aswell as if someone wants to leave school at 16 to go to university and they live in a rural area then they would need to organise transport as there isnt any public transport in rural areas.
Posted by shawn eskrick 5.28PM, 26 Nov 2009The driving age of 15 is good, this is not where the problem lies!
The training for a full driver licence is where the bus falls over, we all know that young people are easy to train and that when trained they seem to remember thing more then older people. This is evident in that people most likely to brake the law regarding driving, are older people that have driven for years, they do not stop at stop signs and cut in front of oncoming traffic and drive to slow without allowing others to pass. Yes drinking seems to be a problem as to the youth of today but the stats show drinking and driving is not a bigger problem amongst the youth, it is a massive problem across the board.
The issue regarding a restriction and the waiting period before obtaining a full licence, this is another point of concern as a person driving by themselves does not teach responsibility it depresses the teaching. Why bring this up? the restriction licence should be revoked as in fact is has or will have no positive effect on the skills a driver learning or mastering the shill of driving, this skill should be taught during the learners period then a driver obtaining a full after his or hers learners would be competent and not a risk on the road. I say this from past experience driving in Europe, Asia, Africa and America where this restriction is not a option, and comparing the skill elsewhere to NZ.
This being my observations and experiences and is totally open for revue.
Posted by Carel Kirstein 11.31AM, 26 Nov 2009