Proof we're shit drivers...

[MercuryFree]

 Divine']

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

My girlfriend took this to the next level - the other (middle aged female real estate agent in a commodore or something, I sense a stereotype) driver wasn't giving way to her when they were supposed to, so she (my girlfriend) stopped in the road (which I guess is more sensible than the other approach speeding in a 50km/h area and failing your restricted), the middle aged woman then kept coming anyway, somehow unable to see the car in her path, T-boned my girlfriend's car and WROTE IT OFF.

Needless to say she 'failed' although as it wasn't her fault they let her resit it for free and she passed, lol.

Having your car written off in your restricted test by no fault of your own, you cannot make shit like that up

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.

So you're saying that although I've had 5 years of driving, have never gotten a ticket for anything aside from mild speeding, have never even been in an accident let alone caused one, and passed my learners, restricted and full licence tests all on the first attempt, I should be precluded from teaching - for example - my little sister to drive by the fact that I've only held a full licence for 1.65 years?

I see and agree with where you're getting at by I disagree with your approach .

Also, I had about <50 hours of training total (and by training I mean driving around with my parents, not one single 'paid' lesson) between getting my learners and getting my restricted, and then no training between restricted and full aside from the mandatory 1 hour session you do for defensive driving course, and read my driving statistics above. Professional training only helps those who are going to need it whether it's mandatory or not, don't make the rest of us suffer just because there are some dumb dumb people out there.

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

In which case it doesn't cost SFA does it

Why should the license to drive a car cost any less than the car itself.

Because having the licence cost the same or more than the average car is retarded and revenue gathering.

The cost of a licence should be a token small fee (to as ?you? said, make people 'value' it) plus proportionate contribution to the costs of administering the system

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.

Well, I learned to drive entirely in a 177hp SS3 (read: top non turbo model with extra bracing and such) Toyota Celica, and the only thing that would make me not suggest one of those over a 70hp 1.3L nana car is the fact that the clutch is a bit more difficult to control as happens with clutches designed to have more power, although nothing really major in the case of 180hp front wheel drive. 180HP is plenty controllable by a beginner.

Do I think beginners should learn in turbo charged cars? No. Turbos are a whole other thing to learn to drive (somewhat) which is potentially dangerous in a beginners hand. But non turbo cars with decent amounts of power sure.

In fact I'd argue that a lot of 'performance' or 'boy racer' style cars such as non-turbo silvias and celicas and preludes and altezzas and integra type r's (note how I am not including OH BRO LOOK AT MY CHROMES AU cars such as 318i's and low spec integras others of that brethren in this definition cos let's face it, they're polished turds) are actually SAFER for learner drivers than nana spec swifts and corollas in that they have better suspension and brakes which goes a long way towards 'babying' beginners without the risk of them taking the car past it's limits, whilst also having safety features such as ABS and Airbags in the event that the learner driver does push it too far.

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

My girlfriend took this to the next level - the other (middle aged female real estate agent in a commodore or something, I sense a stereotype) driver wasn't giving way to her when they were supposed to, so she (my girlfriend) stopped in the road (which I guess is more sensible than the other approach speeding in a 50km/h area and failing your restricted), the middle aged woman then kept coming anyway, somehow unable to see the car in her path, T-boned my girlfriend's car and WROTE IT OFF.

Needless to say she 'failed' although as it wasn't her fault they let her resit it for free and she passed, lol.

Having your car written off in your restricted test by no fault of your own, you cannot make shit like that up

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.

So you're saying that although I've had 5 years of driving, have never gotten a ticket for anything aside from mild speeding, have never even been in an accident let alone caused one, and passed my learners, restricted and full licence tests all on the first attempt, I should be precluded from teaching - for example - my little sister to drive by the fact that I've only held a full licence for 1.65 years?

I see and agree with where you're getting at by I disagree with your approach .

Also, I had about <50 hours of training total (and by training I mean driving around with my parents, not one single 'paid' lesson) between getting my learners and getting my restricted, and then no training between restricted and full aside from the mandatory 1 hour session you do for defensive driving course, and read my driving statistics above. Professional training only helps those who are going to need it whether it's mandatory or not, don't make the rest of us suffer just because there are some dumb dumb people out there.

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

In which case it doesn't cost SFA does it

Why should the license to drive a car cost any less than the car itself.

Because having the licence cost the same or more than the average car is retarded and revenue gathering.

The cost of a licence should be a token small fee (to as ?you? said, make people 'value' it) plus proportionate contribution to the costs of administering the system

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.

Well, I learned to drive entirely in a 177hp SS3 (read: top non turbo model with extra bracing and such) Celica, and the only thing that would make me not suggest one of those over a 70hp 1.3L nana car is the fact that the clutch is a bit more difficult to control as happens with clutches designed to have more power, although nothing really major in the case of 180hp front wheel drive. 180HP is plenty controllable by a beginner.

Do I think beginners should learn in turbo charged cars? No. Turbos are a whole other thing to learn to drive (somewhat) which is potentially dangerous in a beginners hand. But non turbo cars with decent amounts of power sure.

In fact I'd argue that a lot of 'performance' or 'boy racer' style cars such as non-turbo silvias and celicas and preludes and altezzas and integra type r's (note how I am not including OH BRO LOOK AT MY CHROMES AU cars such as 318i's and low spec integras others of that brethren in this definition cos let's face it, they're polished turds) are actually SAFER for learner drivers than nana spec swifts and corollas in that they have better suspension and brakes which goes a long way towards 'babying' beginners without the risk of them taking the car past it's limits, whilst also having safety features such as ABS and Airbags in the event that the learner driver does push it too far.

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.

This is very true, I didn't really know the limits of my wrx until I took it to a trackday and unintentionally got oversteer at 120km/h around a corner and had to deal with that (MAD DRIFTIES AU). As a result I now know where the cars limits can be found, and trackday number #2 I didn't end up in anywhere near as dodgy a situation the whole day, and I feel I am now a safer road driver

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.

A lot of the difference between our system and Germany and Finland's is the environment. Germany has nice safe well designed and built roads, whilst we have roads that were designed badly, built by a bunch of dudes with a "she'll be right" attitude and then maintained badly. Some of our roads have speed limits accordingly as the road itself is dangerous not the drivers per se.

Our State Highway ONE is atrocious if we compare it to first world road standards for f***s sake

Finland on the other hand has ice, snow and gravel/dirt roads to deal with so I would hope that they have a more strenous driver licence and training system than we do

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.

New Zealand doesn't really have extreme conditions, let's be honest. Those of us in the north (read: something like 2/3rds of the population) will never come across black ice, road snow or other such phenomena.

The proportion of road accidents that are caused by a driver spinning out that aren't caused by human-derived roading conditions would be infinitesimal compared to those caused by drink driving, not paying attention and misapplication of road rules, I'd wager.

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)

They've been slowly repaving state highway one around wellington with that new ultrasmooth veryvery black stuff over the past 1-2 years, this involves pouring semi-complete tarmac directly onto the road and then rolling it down. They do it in sections of like 0.5-1km because of how long it takes to do lol. The result is some awesome ass road however .

So perhaps they're switching back or to hybrid option c?

[quote name='99GTB said:

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.

I see that every fucking day. That and people failing to indicate and middle aged men running red lights are what fucks me off the most about drivers. (well, aside from drink driving)

I fully believe that one should have to resit the theory test every 5/10 years. (or make a harder theory test and make them sit that one, since they should be experted to be 'expert' by now)

On a related note I saw a highway patrol cop incorrectly indicate at a round about the other day, causing the car behind him to copy him and also do it incorrectly, which fucked me off to no end!

b]Someone make me a "Longest non-spam forum post" award for next years megameet please [/b]

[Treecrusher]

 MercuryFree said:

A lot of words.

Sorry mate, but listening to the sentiment of what you were writing I think you are pretty much the type of person we need to get a lot more training into and prevent from having a full un-restricted license until you're about 20 (I'm guessing you're about 17/18?).

You might be fine, notwithstanding the considerable experience you have obtained (tell me was that self directed, or did you have the ability to draw on decades of experience from a professional?). There are a lot kids out there who think 180 hp isn't a lot of power. Well it is and is more than enough power to easily propel a car to 180 kph and beyond if they are smart enough to remove the speed limiter. My first three cars had about 70 hp each and you would struggle to get them going 120 down hill with your foot on the clutch. Especially when a lot of us only had 4 gears.

The problem with 180 hp cars it is to easy for a testosterone filled lad to get it going well over 100 kph in a relatively short amount of time. When this is combined with built up areas the results are to often deadly.

Making a license cost a lot more and take a significant amount of time to get will make kids respect it a lot more and hopefully make them think twice before hitting 80+ in that 50 zone.

[funkytown]

 Treecrusher']

[quote name='MercuryFree said:

A lot of words.

/quote]

some stuff

while i agree with parts of each argument i think the motto for a licence should be "its a privilege not a right".. and then work to satisfy that mantra.

[deathz0r]

TBH all I heard was derp derp derp

@Treecrusher - I can vouch for MercuryFree's driving. He may be a dick, but a decent enough driver. And a little older than 17/18

[MercuryFree]

 Treecrusher']

[quote name='MercuryFree said:

A lot of words.

/quote]

Sorry mate, but listening to the sentiment of what you were writing I think you are pretty much the type of person we need to get a lot more training into and prevent from having a full un-restricted license until you're about 20 (I'm guessing you're about 17/18?).

You might be fine, notwithstanding the considerable experience you have obtained (tell me was that self directed, or did you have the ability to draw on decades of experience from a professional?).

lol I mentioned that I'd been driving for 5 years so I'd have to be at least 20 already (i'm halfway to 22 fyi).

Since getting my restricted I have covered over 60,000km's with zero crashes, my fault or otherwise. I fail to see what the benefit of more training would be compared to the cost.

The car with the LEAST horsepower that I would have driven for more than about 100km's of that time or so would've been around the 125hp mark, 90% of it being done in either the aforementioned celica or my 280hp wrx.

I've done two trackdays and the only 'professional instruction' I've done as part of that was sitting in the back seat of Shale's car as Tony drove us around Manfield for 3 laps or so (which was very handy for mastering the track but not so applicable to the road etc), if that's what you're asking.

Your argument as to testosterone filled lads being able to get cars over 100kph in a relatively short period of time is fundamentally flawed by the fact that this is purposefully breaking the road rules as opposed to being unable to control the power / handle the car. If they then go ahead and kill themselves it's not because they needed more training, it's because they shouldn't have been breaking the law in the first place.

Have a 'speed on your restricted and lose your licence' instead of a slap on the wrist would I argue be more effective than "NO SEMI-POWERFUL CARS KTHNX"

[Guest loren]

 MercuryFree']

lol I mentioned that I'd been driving for 5 years so I'd have to be at least 20 already (i'm halfway to 22 fyi).

18 or 22. meh. still quite possibly a little boy

Since getting my restricted I have covered over 60,000km's with zero crashes, my fault or otherwise. I fail to see what the benefit of more training would be compared to the cost.

Wanna medal for being such a good little driver? Maybe the extra cost would be lost on you,

but not everyone is such a goody goody

[quote name='MercuryFree said:

Your argument as to testosterone filled lads being able to get cars over 100kph in a relatively short period of time is fundamentally flawed by the fact that this is b] purposefully breaking the road rules[/b] as opposed to being unable to control the power / handle the car. If they then go ahead and kill themselves it's not because they needed more training, it's because they shouldn't have been breaking the law in the first place.

So people can't be trained not to break the law???

[aim]

MercuryFree, you are the copy/paste king

I learnt to drive in a 280hp B4. Have crashed twice, once my own fault, and once not, both intersection crashes (the one where it was my fault the driver was speeding in town, dude thought it was sweet to overtake a turning truck at an intersection)... I'd estimate my driving k's in excess of 60,000. Having done a LOT of open road driving, I lived 250k from school and have driven the chch - wairoa road nearly ten times (~900k). Both crashes have been around town (city?), where (I admit) am not nearly as confident.

I'm 20 btw. And for a 'testosterone fuelled lad' learning in a powerful car, not a shocking record - tbh, it's helped me learn the characteristics of driving a turbo car (both crashes were in non turbo cars, old camry and legacy ts, )

TBH, any breaking of the law on your restricted should be an instant increase on the time taken to get the next licence or a loss of said licence and need to resit. Would certainly make kids think twice about doing something stupid.

Oh and btw, the lessons do cost SFA, because the party interested is likely 15/16 and pays fuck all tax anyway. For us, however a different story.

[MercuryFree]

 loren']

Since getting my restricted I have covered over 60,000km's with zero crashes, my fault or otherwise. I fail to see what the benefit of more training would be compared to the cost.

Wanna medal for being such a good little driver? Maybe the extra cost would be lost on you,

but not everyone is such a goody goody

[quote name='MercuryFree said:

Your argument as to testosterone filled lads being able to get cars over 100kph in a relatively short period of time is fundamentally flawed by the fact that this is b] purposefully breaking the road rules[/b] as opposed to being unable to control the power / handle the car. If they then go ahead and kill themselves it's not because they needed more training, it's because they shouldn't have been breaking the law in the first place.

So people can't be trained not to break the law???

Don't want a medal just using myself as an example of why blanket 'regulation' is misguided.

Most people can indeed be trained to not break the law, but some can't. My point was that in the context of making us better drivers, restricting power is going to do a lot less good than making the test harder, for example. A lot of the people I see doing 130/140 down the motorway are in shitboxes or landwhales that would've taken a while to get to that speed compared to a high performance car and hey look, it's the driver not the vehicle that's the problem.

Given that most testosterone fueled teenagers who crash are already breaking one or another of the road rules irrespective of the fact that they're in a powerful car, restricting performance is just a burden on everyone else.

Most of the horrific crashes that I see with teenagers on the news etc involve riced up 1.5L civics with half a horsepower to their name doing 65k's in the wet around corners in 50 zones and hitting a power pole.

For some evidentiary whatnots, here's a list of my friends, what they drive, and how many crashes they have, and what age they crashed at.

• Me. 21. 280hp wrx, no crashes ever.
  
• Mate #1. 22. Has driven a v4 wrx since he was like 17. No crashes ever
  
• Mate #2. 21. 200hp skyline. No crashes ever.
  
• Mate #3. 21. 280hp B4. One crash. Was doing some high speed in the middle of nowhere and spun out. No actual damage to car or people though. Note that he was breaking the law by speeding already, at which point the car's power becomes somewhat irrelevant.
  
• Mate #4. 21. 20Xhp BMW 328i. No crashes ever
  
• Mate #5. 25. 1.6L low HP nissan sentra. Was going 100km down the motorway and somebody pulled out in front of him, causing him to spin out and almost hit a power pole avoiding the idiot who pulled out.
  
• Mate #6. Female. 20. 100hp early 90's galant. Had bald tyres and locked up in the wet and ran up the back of someone in a 50km/h zone (no speeding).
  
• Mate #6. Female. Various ages between 16 and 20. (same chick as above) she's written off like 3/4 cars or something total. All low powered things like 1.5L lancers.
  
• Mate #7. Male. 20 (at the time). Fell asleep at the wheel in his 120hp Galant and mowed down a bus stop sign in a 50km/h zone
  
• Mate #7. Male. 21. Got sideswiped by a soccer mum going around a corner retardedly in an SUV who then failed to stop. 120hp galant, 50km zone.
  
• Mate #7. Male. 20 (at the time). Had relatively bald tyres and accidentally ran a red light in the wet as a result. 120hp galant, motorway (i think).
  
• Mate #8. Male. 18. Non-turbo nana spec skyline (ie. the one with like 120hp). Spun off road going around a corner, that about 4 people a week spin off at (google grey's road, lol). AFAIK not speeding at the time.
  
• Mate #9. 240hp Mitsi VR4. 19 at the time iirc. Drove up the back of someone who had suddenly stopped in the middle of a one lane road because he wasn't paying attention. No speeding, 50km/h zone.
  
• Mate #10. Nana-spec prelude (the 130hp one). 19. Backed into someone coming out of his driveway at like 5km/h.
  
• Mate #11. 20/21. Had a 210hp top model prelude. No crashes. Sold that and bought a B4, no crashes. B4 was stolen and driven off a cliff by the theieves.
  
• Mate #12. was I think like 18 at the time. Drunk drove some shitty ass car into a power pole.
  
• Chick I know. Her mother is a driving instructor. Drove into a parked car that was on the opposite side of the road, writing off her car. Car had like 7hp, can't remember what it was. This same chick then managed to spin out on a straight bit of road going less than 70km/h and hit a tree, almost killing herself and again, writing off the car. Car was also nana-spec++ with half a horsepower
  
• ex-gf. 16. Had a freak out whilst driving her 1.3L toyota echo or whatever in a 50km/h zone, because a moth started flying around her head. Drove into a parked car and wrote off her car.
  
• current gf. 21. Had her car written off by a middle aged woman t-boning her whilst on her restricted test, at like 20km/h. In a 1.3L suzuki swift, less horsepower than a vacuum cleaner.
  

That's all my friends etc whose driving history I know, and oh hey look, that's even a NEGATIVE correlation between horsepower and being shit at driving. I would never try to argue that that is true but it does seem to quite significantly disagree with OMG HP + YOUNG DRIVERS = DEATH.

[Treecrusher]

Don't take any of this personally mate. It is not directed at you at all.

I think though we will have to agree to disagree. My feelings on the situation are only reaffirmed by your comments. Back in the day (i'm 28 so about 10-12 years ago) the fastest car one of my mates had was a DOCH GT corolla. We all did our cars up and re-built the engines (I had a fully worked 4k with twin side draught webbers in a DX, KE30 and SR coupe) but even the fastest car out of all my friends was very slow by today's standards (I mean cars financially available to the average teenager).

The main difference between these cars is the speed at which things happen. Yes we got our cars sideways, yes we dragged each other from lights, but even with a lot of engine work my Corolla's would have been lucky to do a 16 or 17 second quarter mile. Whereas turbo subaru's would eat that factory.

As you said we can't prevent kids from driving these cars, so we need to teach them what happens at speed and how hard a vehicle is to control.

I am not an experienced driver. But I am 28, had my first paddock basher when I was 12, had owned, driven and crashed many cars on private roads before I was 15, have probably driven 5 or 6 hundred thousand k's in several countries. Including hundreds of assents and descents on snowy and icy ski access roads. Have completed many driving courses, practical and theory, have raced Rotax karts for several years and hold a B class competition license. I still listen to see what I can pick up from experienced drivers and would happily pay for further tuition from experienced teachers.