What do blue P plates mean in Australia?

What is blue P plates in Australia? And what does P plate stand for?

Most people are fairly confident in recognising what an L-Plate is and its graduating levels – red and green P plates. If you don’t, the ‘P’ in P plate refers to the driver being on a provisional licence, either P1 for red P plates for P2 for green P plates.

But have you ever seen or even heard of blue P plates? And a hint, just like red P plates can fade to pink P plates, they’re not faded green P plates that look blue towards the end of their life!

They’re also not the blue R plates Australia that MyCar.com.au have launched in NSW, for 'returning drivers' who have experienced road trauma to display when they are getting back into the driver's seat.

Fig 1 sourced from mycar.com.au

Blue P plates stemmed from a program developed by Sarah Bruce, a former VicRoads licence tester and owner of the Drive Skills 4 Life business.

Drive Skills 4 Life helps learner drivers get their licence, has dedicated programs to get drivers who have experienced trauma and anxiety back on the road, as well as a NDIS plan.

Sarah developed the Blue P Program to assist learner drivers and their parents with the driving skills and safety awareness necessary for the mandatory 120-hour driving experience and testing required prior to graduating to the red P plate licensing level.

Sarah Bruce – owner of Drive Skills 4 Life and creator of the Blue P Program

What made this program stand out was its support for the parents and carers who are supervising their learner child driver.

The program was customised to the client and included skills tuition and a comprehensive booklet featuring checklists and information to encourage respectful and safe driving – all under the care of an accredited instructor.

Parents also had the option of contacting the driving instructor in-between lessons to discuss areas they needed further help with and to incorporate the feedback into practical suggestions during their own lessons with their child.

The biggest takeaway Sarah had from the program was that a carer's direct involvement and participation in the lessons resulted in learner drivers who were more safety conscious and retained more of their professional lesson material than those whose parents ‘sat back’ and hoped the instructor taught them everything.

Parents who took on lesson feedback (even sat in the back of the learning car during initial lessons) were key to a child’s safe driving success.

It makes sense because driving can become habitual, including elements that are unsafe, or not in line with the current road rules and regulations.

Teaching a teenager to drive is daunting enough with the eventual eye-rolls and ‘I know how to do this’ (while they very nearly swipe a parked car to their left – lookin’ at you little bro). But instructing a mini dictator on road rules that you ‘know’ (but also might need a refresher course on) can be traumatic.

The Blue P Program was designed to get the parent and the teenager ready to drive by offering after lesson support and guidance to address any concerns.

You may have noticed we’ve been talking in past tense and that’s because due to confusion about the blue P plate meaning and concern people could associate it with signage for disabled parking, the initiative was renamed Driver Support Program in 2019.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck and the program was scaled back. No longer available as a ‘package’ to purchase, Sarah instead incorporated the key elements into her professional lessons as she recognised how strong the program results were.

And Sarah believes there should be more programs like the Blue P Program out there. We all want safer drivers who are better with risk assessment and being respectful on the road.

Our younger drivers are also one of our most at-risk groups on the road and what better way to protect them than by giving them the skillset to become great drivers.

There are currently no states in Australia that use blue P plates. But it poses the question, should we have something similar to the R plate but for those learner drivers who have undergone specialist defensive driving and/or hazard perception courses. It might encourage participation in those courses if the driver gets to display their ‘cool’ P plates.