Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Dylan Thomsen: AA Road Safety Spokesperson on the Government's proposed changes to driver licensing

Transcript

Dylan Thomsen: AA Road Safety Spokesperson on the Government's proposed changes to driver licensing · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 0:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, the government wants to change up our driver's licensing
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: system as looking at a new proposal to new drivers
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: will only have to take one practical test instead of two.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Restricted drivers with defensive driving and clean records will automatically
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: gain their full after twelve months. There's a bunch of conditions,
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: including halving the number of demerit points, and there'll be
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: a zero percent alcohol breath limit regardless of their age.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: So AA Road Safety spokesperson Dylan Thompson joins me, Now,
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: good morning to you.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Dylan, good morning.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: So this is good because it's cheaper, but it's bad
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  Speaker 2: because they spend less time supervised driving.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Well, I think I'd say it's good in that the
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: government is actually looking at making some significant changes and
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: we're right on board with zero alcohol limit and more
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: consequences for learner or restricted drivers breaking the rules. I
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: think the way I thought it is we think it
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: could be better if we looked to also make some
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: changes that requires learners to do a lot more practice
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: in preparation and training than we currently do in New Zealand.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: So if we look overseas, a lot of the countries
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  Speaker 1: it has systems like this with just one on row test.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: They have a minimum number of hours of practice and
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: incentives for people to do professional lessons in driving courses.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Now, Chris Bishop actually talked about an app, an app
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: to be your supervised driver. Do you trust that?
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Well, no, it's not an app to be your supervised driver,
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  Speaker 1: but a lot of an Australian states. What they have
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  Speaker 1: is when you're a learner, you can have an app
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: that records all your practice hours of driving. And what
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  Speaker 1: that will do is if you're the supervising driver with
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: that person, so that might be mum or dad or
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: a grandparent or a friend with full license, you get
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: a message saying this person says they're about to do
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: a practice drive with you. Is that true? You say yes.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Then the app records the time, the distance and everything
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: like that to make it easier.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Fascinating. Will this make it cheaper? Will it reduce the backlog?
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Well, if we had only one test, it would definitely
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: reduce costs and would mean that, you know, there was
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: more capacity in the system for focusing on the restricted
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: test if we if we saw this change. But I
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: think that that key thing has really got to be
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  Speaker 1: focused on safety and are we doing things that are
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: actually going to reduce a really high crash rate right
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: amongst young people in New Zealand.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Well, Dylan, good on you, thank you for joining us.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Dylan is the AA Road Safety spokesperson.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: For more from Earlily Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live
• 2:28
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• 2:31
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