ROAD TRAUMA - WHY ARE THEY SURPRISED

Why is everybody stunned that young drivers are beginning to drive in

a very reckless manner?

  This is the generation who have got their licence online.

There isn’t any responsibility taught and there isn’t any required training.

Just pass an online quiz, get ANYBODY to teach you how to drive

and whammo you are now deemed responsible for other lives.

Simple as that!  It doesn’t matter if you have the maturity of a five year

old or if you have the worst possible role model teaching you.

That isn’t the governments problem.  The only ‘model’ they base all

road training on is the perfect ‘TV commercial’ family,  Dad isn’t a

petrol head or a drink driver and mum is actually home picking the kids

up from sports training so the new driver can get practice! Most

families will tell you this is not how it happens. Families are stressed.

The honour system will not work. Learner drivers will fill out the new

compulsory 120 hrs themselves and parents will be too busy to notice,

because they convince themselves their kids are good drivers too. It

needs to be more official. We get letters in the mail for all sorts of non

life threatening matters but never ever does a driver who is responsible

for us all to be alive at the end of the day ever get anything official

telling them so.   Every young person you see will have an iPod in their

ear or be on the mobile, they are not scanning the news for warnings

about road trauma. They need to be told individually. Send every

driver a letter, an official letter.  It may be the only one they ever get,

but they will understand that it is serious to have a drivers licence if they

are told. As it is now they have no idea.

They do not know about the crashes that killed the week before.

They are oblivious to crashed cars in federation square if they didn’t

walk past.  They play video games where everybody gets out of the

crashed cars without being hurt. They watch car crashes in movies all

the time where people just get out of the cars and continue on as if

nothing happened. This is the generation of drivers who have lost reality

and it is going to be up to the government to officially bring that reality

back to the drivers. Parents cannot be relied upon to do this; the youth

road toll is proof of this.  The current simple system that costs the

government nothing has failed and parents are burying their children

because of it.  The licence testing needs to go back to the police. Local

police then get to know who in their area is getting a licence and what

they are driving.  It is pleasing to see the police finally lay some harsh

charges on these drivers who risk all our lives. These are not mere

‘traffic offences’. Irresponsible driving is conduct endangering life and

should always be treated as such.  Drivers need to have this officially

taught to them. Being good with a mouse on the computer so you get

your learners and therefore your licence if you want it, isn’t enough to

protect us, never has been and never will be.