Safer Young Driver Guide Launched

25 July 2008

Safer Young Driver Guide Launched

The AA Driver Education Foundation and Land Transport New Zealand have today released Safer Young Drivers: a guide to best practice education.

Kath Henderson, spokesperson for AA Driver Education Foundation, says “the guide’s two key aims are to raise the overall standard of road safety education offered to young drivers and help increase the likelihood that young drivers who participate in road safety education become safer drivers.”

Traffic crashes are one of the largest killers of 15 – 24 year-olds in the developed world. In New Zealand this age group makes up around 16% of all licence holders, yet between 2004 and 2006 accounted for 38% of fatal crashes.

“The guide is the first of its type available to New Zealand road safety educators. It draws on extensive international research and experience to ensure that government and community resources invested into young driver education are targeted to where they deliver the greatest road safety benefits.”

“These guidelines will assist training providers, be they commercial businesses, schools or community groups, to more effectively address the learning needs of young drivers and develop or modify their existing programmes to ensure they help young drivers to become safer on the roads,” says Ms Henderson.

Andy Knackstedt, spokesperson for Land Transport New Zealand, says road safety organisations can also use this excellent resource for guidance on the standards that driver training programmes and providers should meet.

Workshops will be held with the road safety education sector over the next 12 months to show them how to best use the guide.

The guide is the result of the collective efforts of many road safety groups, including government agencies, commercial providers of driver education and the AA.

Copies of Safer Young Drivers: a guide to best practice education are available on the websites of Land Transport New Zealand, the Ministry of Transport, the Accident Compensation Corporation, New Zealand Police and the AA.

ENDS

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