September 09, 2016
Ignorance factor in road death toll
Road Safety Education is welcoming a pledge by New Zealand First to tackle the problem of young people driving without a licence.
Echoing a Labour Party policy, leader Winston Peters says helping secondary school students get licences could cut down the number of young Maori men whose first office is driving without a licence.
Road safety programme manager Maria Lovelock says lack of road safety education can also have fatal consequences, with Maori 16 to 24 year olds having one of the highest rates of road deaths.
Last year it accounted for young drivers accounted for 24 percent of the 319 road fatalities despite youth only being 15 percent of the population overall.
Research done as part of a study of Road Safety Education’s RYDA one-day training programme for senior high school students found significant knowledge gaps on critical road safety issues such as the relationship between speed and braking and the greatly increased risk of crashing when carrying one or more same-age passengers.
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