More training needed, you said

An overwhelming 87 per cent of people think current levels of training are inadequate, with 30 per cent of those also believing government bodies should subsidise extra training.

The support for more training is revealed in an exclusive online Carsguide poll triggered by a recent spate of deadly crashes involving young and inexperienced drivers.  Given four choices, with all but one pointing to inadequate training, only 13 per cent of the 2000-plus people in the poll say today's training is sufficient.

The poll is ongoing but, based on the latest results, 47 per cent say driver training is inadequate, a further 30 per cent believe government bodies should subsidise more training to solve the inadequacies, while 10 per cent think the cost should be borne by parents.

The response to the poll is no surprise to engineer and road safety expert John Cadogan.“It’s great to see that so many people acknowledge the inadequacy of driver training,” Cadogan says.

“The current training system is inadequate in everything except the road rules – I think our young drives are fairly well-versed in that regard.”  Cadogan says current training concentrates on how and where to park instead of teaching drivers how to avoid crashes.

“The main thing ignored in training is the imperative to mitigate risk,” he says.  “It’s quite possible to emerge from our graduated licensing scheme and not know that 50 per cent of road trauma occurs at intersections.

“Wouldn’t you think it might be useful for drivers to know that people sometimes crash into stop signs and red lights? If young drivers were given more information, road trauma would be reduced dramatically.”

Cadogan agrees with the 30 per cent of poll respondents who say governments should subsidise the extra training, rather than putting more responsibility on parents.  “There’s no question that there’s a government responsibility to both regulate the roads and ensure they comprise a safe system,” he says.

“It’s fairly difficult to expect parents to train their children – when they haven’t been properly trained themselves. And it’s not a matter of household income … most parents spend a lot of money on their children, for very worthwhile causes.”

Cadogan says funding for better training could come from the vast pool of road fines revenue, and would save the government in the long run.  “If you get driver training right it funds itself because of the reduced cost of road trauma, which is about $20 billion annually -- twice ass much as organised crime,” Cadogan says.

“But there is also a good argument to spend some of the income from fines. And there’s enough of it. I’d be very surprised if speeding alone wasn’t a billion-dollar business – it’s $300 million in New South Wales alone.

“The motorist is the golden goose. We collectively buy 20 billion litres annually of petrol that’s taxed at 50 cents a litre _ that’s 10 billion in taxes. Add to that the yearly registration fees for 15 million vehicles on the road.  Money keeps adding up incredibly – and it generally doesn’t get returned to the road or the user.” 

Cadogan says the other side of the driver coin is the cost of road trauma and death.  “Every life you save probably returns more than a million to the community,” he says.  “Every time there’s a death, there’s an inquest, the cost of calling out the fire services, the police, the reporting system … it all adds up."

He also says the extra training is not about creating a national of drivers with super skills.  “We’re not talking about advanced driver training. Just fundamental concepts," he says.

“We need to change the emphasis of the driver training from rule compliance to risk management.  It’s very easy to comply with road rules – what we need is training to avoid the road risks.”