Hi,

I also think we need to remember that the road toll is on par with what it was in 1978. So in thirty years, millions and millions more drivers, increasing the probationary period 300%, and the road toll hasn't increased.

Is there really a problem?

Cheers,
Nik

__________________
There are two kinds of failures: those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.

1. What do you believe of Mr Carpenter's proposition to limit the type of cars that P-platers can drive? Why?

Limiting types of cars is not pratical. A power to weight is more suitable.

2. Do you think it could help curb the deaths of p-platers on WA roads?

It will "help". Even though this may not have any large effect on solving the problem, it cannot hurt. Young people WILL test the limits and if it the limits are found at a slower speed then that will go some way to decreasing fatalities. Blatent reckless driving cannot be eliminated but the ability to show-off etc is greatly reduced, in paticular, the concequences of an accident can be reduced by limiting the vehicles "power" abilities.


3. How do you respond to calls from the public that p-platers in high-powered cars are irresponsible?

Stereo-typing. Show some statistical proof. What is classed as "high-powered"? Honestly, anything with more than 100kws in a RWD is dangerous for a new driver.

4. What alternatives do you believe would be a better practical measure to curb deaths on WA roads?

Compulsory, extensive driver training from a young age. Say year 10 onwards. Lots of training, greater than 1000hrs of controlled pratical training. Theory: A greater understanding of outcomes, pro-active responses to hazardous situations developing etc.. Differcult examinations when it comes to actually getting your license. You have to actually be able to control a car in an emergency situation... Staged licensing (Like motorbikes).

Driving a car is a part of life, like learning to spell or count.

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K.E.R.S!!!1

Just to re-iterate....

Compulsory training needs to start in high school. Make it part of legislation and part of the school cirriculum. Not a private thing.

Taxpayer pays. Who cares. Lets get serious.

__________________
K.E.R.S!!!1

1. What do you believe of Mr Carpenter's proposition to limit the type of cars that P-platers can drive? Why?

I believe that it is a valid idea although it will be entirely too flawed and implausable a system to actually work, when the eastern states brought in similar laws they were riddled with problems such as 17 year olds being able to drive a Honda NSX but not an old Charade GTi because one was turbocharged while the other was not.

2. Do you think it could help curb the deaths of p-platers on WA roads?

I do, although i believe the issue is not the types of cars, but the education that P platers receive to become licensed drivers. I am currently a P plater myself and see that the majority of P platers on our roads have no idea what they're doing, subsequently i am not at all suprised by the death toll. If drivers were made to do defensive driving courses and do more hours on their L's I think it would be an enormous step in the right direction

3. How do you respond to calls from the public that p-platers in high-powered cars are irresponsible?

I do tend to agree, I drive one particularly fast car and admit that at times I do tend to exceed the speed limit but I wouldnt call myself irresponsible. The thing I see that differentiates myself from other P platers is that I understand the principal of time and place and have a fair amount of driver training under my belt. It has nothing to do with the car, its the driver and again thats where i believe that education will prove to be the solution.

4. What alternatives do you believe would be a better practical measure to curb deaths on WA roads?

EDUCATION!

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PerthWRX - Where gay singles meet!

Hi,

1978: 14,192,234

2008: 21,370,000

Over seven million more people on the continent, and an equal road toll. What rational person could think that the road toll is too high?

Cheers,
Nik

__________________
There are two kinds of failures: those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.

Hi,

If you followed the other recent thread, you'd know I have lost three people this year, in separate accidents.

If you don't think it's at an acceptable level when you can compare 400,000 vehicles to four million vehicles - then I'm sorry. I just cannot agree.

Has anyone wondered if you spent the money that is drained into advertising and changing legislation of hooning, into medical services for the country (highest road toll by ratio) that the numbers might be lower?

Cheers,
Nik

__________________
There are two kinds of failures: those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.

1. What do you believe of Mr Carpenter's proposition to limit the type of cars that P-platers can drive? Why?

I disagree with this statement. Purely on the basis of every car can do high speeds. The only difference between a high powered car and a buzz box is the time it takes to get there.

With the exception of a couple of crashes in the past few years, majority of accidents have been from people taking corners too fast, or racing. As Kym mentioned, irregardless of what car you drive if your that kind of person you will try to race anyway.

I think more attention should be given to the features of the car, rather than power. Does the car have front, passenger, rear, and curtain airbags? Does it have correct auto locking seatbelts? Does it have important safety features like ABS, ESP and traction control?

There should be a stricter control over modified cars, IE if you massively increase performance, you should be required to increase braking performance and tyres.

2. Do you think it could help curb the deaths of p-platers on WA roads?

I think it will have a very minimal impact.

3. How do you respond to calls from the public that p-platers in high-powered cars are irresponsible?

All drivers are irresponsible..! The amount of idiots on the road is incredible, the fact that i drive to and from work and have a couple of near misses a day, and don't think much of it goes to show that people are accepting of it.

Whilst i don't think we should limit P platers in high performance cars, i do think they should be trained and educated in how to drive them correctly. I had my WRX whilst on my P's but knew how to drive it, and i knew the concequences of my actions.

4. What alternatives do you believe would be a better practical measure to curb deaths on WA roads?

There's a number of things which would easily make driving on the roads alot safer. You need to focus on the life cycle of a person.

Starting with early education. During high school kids have a drivers education class during which they are educated in road safety, and shown the concequences at a young age on what can happen if they are irresponsible on the road. Hopefully it scares them shitless, and thus when they go for their license they will be extremely mindful of what can happen.

Also as part of this class would be basic driving skills in computer simulators. This will show them, without being injured exactly what will happen when they loose control.

The license process should be alot more involved and way harder than it is now to get. I strongly believe that driving lessons with parents should be banned initially, as thats where most kids pick up their bad habbits.

There should be a number of tests over the two year period, which include such things as daytime driving, night time driving, driving in peak hours, on the freeway, wet weather etc. Basically all the different types of conditions that a young driver might encounter.

People may complain that it will be expensive, but so what? driving is a priveledge not a right! They should have to earn it.

There's alot more that could be said on driver training but i think i've ranted enough.

Once someone has a licence this doesn't mean they know everything, there should be an ongoing testing system. Rules and limits change all the time, car technologies change all the time. Just because you've driven around in your front wheel drive corolla doesn't mean your an expert when you upgrade to a V8 commodore...!

Testing should also increase as people get older. Its more frequently and old person who's sitting in the right lane doing 20k's under the speed limit. They need to look more at what is causing people to overtake unsafely, or speed. If you get caught doing 20k's under the speed, then naturally you will speed to make up time..! or risk overtaking unsafely.

There should be ALOT more marked police cars on the road, it's an extremely simple theory... If you have a cop sitting behind/next/in front of you of coarse your going to do the speed limit and drive sensibly. An unmarked cop car three cars back will catch you after the event, but hell that could have been the one time you fucked up and killed yourself, and or someone else.

Part of the marked presence should involve targeting bad driving habbits. Things such as

- Driving in the right hand lane
- Driving under the speed limit
- Failure to indicate when changing lanes, going through roundabouts around corners and so on
- talking on mobile phones (i still see this regularly)
- tailgating
- driving appropriately to the road conditions, IE tailgating in wet weather should be a worse punishment than in the dry.
- People wildly swerving across lanes to turn a corner, or take a freeway exit.

But again, if there was more marked cop cars i think less of the above would happen.

There is this massive focus on speeding, its over rated. Sure doing 25-30 over the speed limit is stupid, but really whats so bad about driving 10-15k's over?

I'm going to take the extreme approach and say that speeding fines should be changed. I would suggest up to 15k's over there's no fine. People spend so much time watching there speedo they don't concentrate on the road. Yet 15+ is immediate loss of license for 3 months, and a $1000 dollar fine. 30k's plus would be loss of license for 12 months, and possible jail time.

Stricted vehicle controls is important, a similar system to New Zealand where cars have to be checked regularly. The amount of cars/trucks on the road that are unsafe is rediculous, yet you rarely see these with yellow stickers??!

Road conditions should be upgraded, less traffic lights, short merging lanes and so on. If you look at the onramp from the roe onto the freeway, the on ramps are really long, this allows people to get up to 100km's before they try to merge.

There should be alot more money spent on smoothing out roads and filling in pot holes. things like angling corners so they can be taken at a higher speed! Things like this all go back to the opion that speed is bad..!

Increasing public transport and making it alot safer is also important. Although i agree to a certain extent with taking P platers off the road at night, it will have quite a flow on effect. Whilst they are allowed to drive to and from work, and for work. What about the younger brothers and sisters picking up drunken sibilings at 2am?

The siblings will get frustrated with rediculously long taxi lines, no public transport etc and will start drink driving...

/rant

__________________
Osama Bin Hooning
Senior Terrorist Operative
Perth-Wrx

A bit about me:
23 years old.
Held a drivers license since age 16 (NZ Learners), Australian license at 17.
Have lived in both country and city settings.

1. What do you believe of Mr Carpenter's proposition to limit the type of cars that P-platers can drive? Why?

This suggestion makes no economic sense. Is a 1 car family suppose to trade in the family sized commodore for a p-plate friendly vehicle. Also most modern 4 cylinder cars out out more power than v6/8 and turboed vehicles of 10 years ago.

Overall this is a kneejerk, bandaid solution for political point scoring. Which also distracts the public from other govt. policy which also needs to be addressed.

2. Do you think it could help curb the deaths of p-platers on WA roads?

Statistically, Yes. Simply because trying to get the hard data on car crash causes is already difficult to collate and I, as should to public shouldn't trust the police and govt. analysis of this data.

Realistically, if kids are on the road for less hours, less accidents will occur. As such this will be attributed to this policy. A real study would be to measure is accidents over time available to drive diminishes.

3. How do you respond to calls from the public that p-platers in high-powered cars are irresponsible?

My grandparents did silly things in cars, my parents did silly things in cars and I do silly things in cars. Learning to drive in a lifelong process. Idiots will always be idiots.

However as a general rule I have found more idiots in non-performance than in performance cars. Irresponsibility behind a wheel is a personal issue which should be stereotyped across a mass media buzz word.

4. What alternatives do you believe would be a better practical measure to curb deaths on WA roads?

A more practical measure is to remove what actually kills most drivers on the road. Stationary objects. Namely trees, poles and other large heavy objects. Removing these hazards will give more 'run off room' and space for other drivers to move into in the event of an accident.

Driver training is also an example of this. A simple solution would be to make a driving test more difficult to pass. As such a driver would need more practice time to pass. Mandatory training days (basic AHG and road condition classes at a govt. subsided token cost would help).

Another idea would be to lower the age at which you can apply for a learner permit. You can currently get a learners at 16 years of age, Log book permit at 16 years 6 months and a Provisional at 17. Simply moving the learners permit time frame 6 months earlier would allow another 6 months on log books where training and experience can accumulate with a 'good' instructor.

Also parents may be good sources to teach students the mechanics of driving a car. Unfortunately most WA drivers including your parents and most driving instructors are not good at teaching how to read road conditions, other traffic and will often pass on their own bad habits.

Overall the Status Quo is has much to improve on and driving a vehicle in WA is for most a necessity Dracon P-Plate laws will hurt those who often need a vehicle to most, country people and those without easy access to public transport.


edit- my grammar is terrible.

1. What do you believe of Mr Carpenter's proposition to limit the type of cars that P-platers can drive? Why?

Interesting concept, however like anything that is "banned" it is hard to enforce unless there is "consistent" policing of the law. It would be nearly impossible to distinguish a 'P' plater (we have all driven without P's at some stage) cruising along in a high powered vehicle, as apposed to any joe citizen, unless you pull over every high powered vehicle that passes, it is highly unlikely this law in principle would work effectively.

2. Do you think it could help curb the deaths of p-platers on WA roads?

Unfortunately no, regardless of what vehicle p-platers drive accidents can and will occur.

3. How do you respond to calls from the public that p-platers in high-powered cars are irresponsible?

'P' platers or not we have all been irresponsible at some stage or another whether in a high powered vehicle or a bunky. 'P' platers are targets due to their inexperience. Those that have been on their 'P's a number of times due to reckless/irresponsible behaviour on the road, don't understand/disregard the privilege of being able to drive.

4. What alternatives do you believe would be a better practical measure to curb deaths on WA roads?

'P' platers need experience on the road to understand the limits of their vehicles/themselves in all road conditions and understand what may occur on the road. Preempting what the next person may do comes with time, thus enabling yourself to be prepared and hopefully avoid a serious incident.
Driver training in closed conditions is a great start however this may cause an even higher incident of accidents due to some feeling invincible because they have had some advanced driver training.

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....slow and steady wins the race....fark that!!

couldn't agree more yet the public want to ban performance cars because the media put the idea in their head.

1. What do you believe of Mr Carpenter's proposition to limit the type of cars that P-platers can drive? Why?

This could work but like people have said its a band aid approach to fixing a problem. I might stop 1 or 2 deaths but high performance viechles are safer than average cars. To reduce deaths better education of the learner and parents needs to be addressed.

2. Do you think it could help curb the deaths of p-platers on WA roads?
No, P platers and the general public still speed and race in normal cars. Racing isn't restricted to V8's and performance cars

3. How do you respond to calls from the public that p-platers in high-powered cars are irresponsible?
The general wouldn't know believe whatever the media wants them to believe. Performance cars do have the potential to kill motorists but so do all cars. Majority of deaths seen on t.v are your typical family car not performance car.

4. What alternatives do you believe would be a better practical measure to curb deaths on WA roads?
1. Increase hours
2. More educate for PARENTS and students. Kids learn the majority of their driving habits from their parents.
3. Make defensive driving course complusory
4. Fix our roads. There are some terrible intersections / pot holes big enough to swallow a child.

If all of these measures don;t work why not increase the age of someone getting their licence to 20????