Editorial: Those young hotheads

OPINION: You've no doubt been hearing a whole lot about that terrible group of young drivers aged 15 to 19, and how they are 60 per cent more likely than their Australian counterparts to die in road crashes, writes The Southland Times in an editorial.

They're just 15 per cent of our population, but they're involved in about 38 per cent of the serious-injury crashes.

Given that the Government's long-considered reaction includes raising the driving age from 15 to 16, you would think that this would impact at the pointiest end of the statistical problem.

However, the actual numbers show that 15-year-olds are far from the most problematic group in their age bracket.

From 2004 to 2008 they were at fault in between 110 and 155 crashes each year. You can double those figures, or more, for any older teenage-year group. The figures worsen the older you get, topped by 19-year-olds who are at fault in between 400 and 500 crashes a year.

These are not figures you'll have been tripping over in the debate so far.

Now, we should have some care how we interpret them, particularly since there are likely to be far fewer 15-year-olds on the road than older teens, and the newbie drivers have the restrictions of limited licences.

It is also, undeniably, the case that New Zealand teens are allowed behind the wheel at a much younger age than is considered wise by comparable countries.

And polls have strongly suggested that there is plenty of public support for raising the age, lamentations from rural areas notwithstanding. If anything, the criticism from the adult world to date has been whether the increase is sufficient.

Even so, count the crashes by 15-year-olds and you see that removing them from the driving lanes doesn't, in itself, represent anything like a silver bullet or even count as the most ultimately significant part of the Government's package of measures.

The answer has more to do with being more careful – and, yes, controlling – about how we ease young people into driving than we have been.This is particularly given the striking increase in the power of the cars that are at their financial disposal, and their cheapness relative to bygone years.

The Transport Ministry counters any view that the problem is more to do with the inexperience of the first-year driver, whatever age he or she might be, and that all this change will do is shift it back a year.

The ministry says research here and overseas confirms that age is a major risk factor irrespective of driving experience.

In New Zealand crash risk rises substantially from the learner to the restricted (first solo) stage, and the younger the driver, the more the risk worsens.

Age issues aside, the Government is entirely right to impose a zero-alcohol level for drivers under 20, and there is much to be said for making the restricted licence test more difficult to encourage 120 hours of supervised driving practice.

That is liable to drive many parents crazy, since much of that instructional burden is likely to fall on them rather than paid instructors, but as many a grieving adult can attest, there are worse things.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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