Proof we're shit drivers...

[aim]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3830426/Pass-rates-plunge-on-driver-tests

Ok well maybe the younger generation are just dumb. But it's still pretty shocking...

[dubbedup]

unreal really, altho if i had to resit i'd prolly fail.

[Volcanix]

correlation isnt causation

[Guest loren]

I do not believe the NZ Police are so naive as to think their tests have not been learned by rote for years...

ever since the ACTUAL tests were available to the public... the most retarded move ever.

I am sure it has been common knowledge ever since then, that rote learning was both possible and easy... I've heard several people joke about how easy it was over the

years. How could the Police have missed this?

[ODB]

to be honest our driver testing system here is just a joke and needs a major overhaul.

Recent changes are good but it needs to be more.

Id suggest a more strenuous written test, and much longer practical tests along with a mandatory amount of hours logged with an instructor/driving course.

LOL unrelated but when we arrived from UK dad showed his UK licence they just issued him with a NZ one. He enquired about HGV and motor cycle licences. Dude "oh do you already have those licences in England too?". Old man: "yup".

Dude: "Here you go then". LOL.

This was like 15 years ago though~

[dubbedup]

I thinkits a typeo - Arnt NZLT in charge of lieceseing?

[MercuryFree]

 Volcanix said:

correlation isnt causation

This is true.

In this case though lol people not knowing the give way rules in the test would indicate that they don't know them on the road.

I didn't actually know that people learned them by rote, that's pretty bad. I just did a couple of practice tests after reading the book and went and sat the test. Didn't memorise anything aside from the ones like "HOW MUCH TREAD IS THE MINIMUM FOR TYRES?" because you're supposed to memorise those ones.

Passed first time and have yet to crash 5 years later

For those who haven't done the restricted test ever / recently, it's not as easy as people are making out. The full licence test on the other hand is a peice of piss by comparison (coming from having done the restricted test 3 years ago and the full test 2 years ago)

[Drunkenmonkey]

my restricted test was a piece a cake drove along road, turn into side st parallel park and back to aa center.... took total of 5 mins? this was in 2005

[Guest]

 Drunkenmonkey said:

my restricted test was a piece a cake drove along road, turn into side st parallel park and back to aa center.... took total of 5 mins? this was in 2005

You must've gotten a lax tester. I did mine about then too (prob a bit earlier than you though) and failed my restricted the first time out coz the guy panicked when I went to overtake a guy pulling into a parallel park who was using the whole road. Had plenty of space to get around the dude, no oncoming cars and was only doing 20kph, but instant fail. Then when I resat it I had a different tester and was given rave reviews "You did really well, especially with the 30 hillstarts behind that road cleaning truck on the hill" Often its at the discretion/laziness of the tester as to whether or not you pass a restricted test or fail.

I did my learners for my 6L (motorcycle) last year just before they went to electronic and I didnt memorize the test or anything, still got 1 or 2 q's wrong though but a pass is a pass. ;D

[ReubenH]

 ODB said:

to be honest our driver testing system here is just a joke and needs a major overhaul.

Recent changes are good but it needs to be more.

I agree in full wi.. frick it; plus one.

[Divine]

I studied the questions for my learners 3 years ago. Thats what I was told to do.

Then I failed my restricted because the OTHER driver didn't give way to me, which I should have seen coming

[Treecrusher]

IMO the worst thing about New Zealands system is the fact that anyone with a full drivers license for 2 years (is it 2 or a bit more?) can teach someone how to drive a car. Now when we have such poor drivers anyway should we be using these people to teach our young ones how to drive.

I think the system should be changed to require a few hundred hours of professional training (throughout the graduated programme, so basically you would have had a lot of training before you got your full). And if you lost your license for anything (demerits as well) you should have to do it again. This would have two fold benefits; One, we would have a highly skilled driving population. Two, it would make people really appreciate their licenses because it cost 2 or 3 grand and would make them think twice about breaking the law if they knew it would cost another 2 or 3 grand to get it back again........Boy racer problem would be sorted in a few years.

[aim]

Nice in theory. Except the kind of person to lose their licence, in general, is the kind of person to drive without one anyway...

[kingersman]

that also cuts quite a few people that can not afford to pay that 2-3k??

also before getting restricted we should have professional driving lessons before you can sit the test and these driving lessons cost SFA ;P

[aim]

prepared to have the tax payer fund the driving lessons? That's the only way it's gonna cost sfa.

[kingersman]

i did like 4 of these lessons... mum made me lol

cost me like $100-150

[aim]

How long were the lessons? That's actually not too bad...

[kingersman]

I think it was either 30mins or 1hr i know it was one of the 2...

[Treecrusher]

 kingersman said:

that also cuts quite a few people that can not afford to pay that 2-3k??

Works for Germany.

By making a license expensive it makes people appreciate more. Why should the license to drive a car cost any less than the car itself.

Until we force a much higher level of professional training a large percentage of drivers in New Zealand will be muppets behind the wheel.

[thorpy]

IMO - restriction on what vehicles learners can drive combined with decent driver training will work.

Im not perfect by any measure but do consider myself a reasonably good driver ,and attribute this to the fact that I learnt to drive in low powered cars ( escorts , datsuns , corollas ect. )and had a few crashes , learning from my mistakes.

These days a learner driver can go out and buy a wrx/evo/skyline ect. and be in control of a vehicle far beyond their limits , and if they do crash there is usually no learning from it as usually the results are fatal.

The other thing I did was a defensive driving course , not the crap classroom lesson to shorten the license period , but a course called Prodrive , this was held on an airstrip in crappy little starlets and taught things like controlling weight transfer in cornering , controling a slide and correct braking techniques - not sure if its still running bu was definatly a good thing.

One thing I definatly reccomend is getting involved in club level motorsport , I recently did my first autocross and was amazed by the amount I learnt about car control in just one day , also alot of older car club guys have a wealth of knowledge they are happy to share.

[thorpy]

Had a search for prodrive and found this

http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/blogs/drivetalk/1878062/Driver-education-time-for-some-carrot-instead-of-stick

 

We've already had something of a system in New Zealand called ProDrive, which over the years probably saved as many lives on the road by developing driving skills among tens of thousands of teens as the training road show that plies the nation's secondary schools. It's gone now, due to lack of funding.

Of course, we'll never prove that it saves lives. In fact, the best evidence of the success of Pro-Drive will probably not occur for two or three decades.

Then, the teens trained in recent years will have reached middle-age. It's the very age-group demographic that's trying to take over from young men as causer and sufferer of most carnage on the road.

In, say, 2025 the LTNZ will probably notice that there's a pleasing trough in the 45 to 55 age group's involvement in traffic accidents. We'll all know - if we're alive - that one reason for such a downward blip will be that training given all those years ago by Pro-Drive.

[aim]

Germany is the 4th largest economy in the world with an impressive ranking in average living standards. They're also a pioneer in motorsport and produced THE most accomplished formula one driver in history.

Personally I think we should take a leaf out of the Fins books.

I think it's kind of unfair to say compare our system to the Germans - the dynamic here is different. For them, driving is a life style, here it's a convenience.

The fins have to take several courses before they are able to drive, and can't progress unless they pass those courses, they also have to wait a longer time until they're fully qualified. Most of it, however, is largely state funded.

I agree our system is a joke and needs a major overhaul.

[Treecrusher]

Unfortunately, I believe, our graduated driver licensing system is driven by (or at least intense lobbying to prevent improvement) by the rural sector. Who believe kids have the right to drive on the road at 15 with minimal to no training. Because they "learn to drive" on the farm from a young age, and need to drive on the road un-supervised early to enable them to get places/help out with farm duties.

That may be ok for the rural sector, but unfortunately it is hard for a city teenager who has never been aloud near a car until they were 15 and who's parents probably couldn't pass through driver licensing system themselves.

How it is paid for is perhaps a different debate. 16 is probably a good compromise for beginning learning to drive. But they should make professional instruction compulsory (I did the prodrive course as well, it was really good) and modify the current system to prevent a full, final license being issued until 19/20. Maybe introduce more steps to the system with greater restrictions on earlier steps such as power, capacity limits and something close to a full license in the later stages.

[ONeill]

I believe our system is a joke.

we need a minimum driving practice standard including extreme conditions training to prepare our young people for all the conditions they will face on our roads.

My ideas that I submitted during the public consultation phase of the last driver liciencing reform bill was:

to have a minimum of 250hrs practice before being fully licienced preferably delivered through a school based program.

to include skid training for all varations of condition and vehicle (FWD, RWD, AWD & 4WD)

minimum of 50 hrs manual vehicle experience.

I've seen a woman die because the driver of the car she was in didn't know how to pull his front wheel drive car out of a skid on a freshly re-paved road. I don't blame the driver for having the skid, i blame the roading contractor for not putting up temporary speed restriction signs, or realistically how we repave our highways now (dump shingle on to tar and get general traffic to pack it down, not roll it like they did in the early 80's)

I cant say I have a great driving history or the best driver training but i did benefit from my own drive to be good enough to pass the test before i took it.

I learnt to drive first in a friends go-cart (3 pedal jobbie) then those carts on the figure 8 tracks (tahuna beach nelson and QE2 park Chch) those experiences taught me the basics of vehicle control, the importance of proper throttle control and how to corner.

I am a firm believer that everyone should learn to drive in a underpowered RWD car on gravel. (ke30 or similar)

[99GTB]

I did the prodrive thing also when I was 15, was fun and actually learnt something. Had a paddock car from when I was 12, manual rwd so learnt alot of basic car control doing stupid stuff in a paddock. Paddock had seen better days when I was done with it. ;D

+1 on the whole compulsory driver training / experience.

But I also feel alot of middle aged drivers need to be forced to revise the road rules if they want to keep driving, even just having to sit the learners test again because I'm certain many would epically fail! One example that annoys me and I see almost everyday is people not keeping to their own lane when turning onto a multi-laned road.