What the hell can be done.....

[Outbackjack]

Once again there is a tragic loss of young life. What can be done? I know that there have been threads on this over and over again, sadly.

But as car enthusiasts, perhaps we could do some brain storming and put some constructive thoughts forward. No pollie bashing, as tempting as it is, they have obviously run out of idea's, short of bigger fines and lower speed limits, more camera's, you get the idea......




I think that education is the answer, along with aptitude and attitude tests. What else can be done??
I have a vested interest in saving young kids lives, as I have a couple of them. As I am sure many on this forum do.

[ebxr8240]

The trouble is cars do most the driving.. Or so it seems the young ones only steer.. They have NEVER had a car out of control and DON'T have any experience other than the oldies saying BE SAFE!!! But how the hell !!! do they know their limits??? I grew up on Dairy farm with tractors and heaps of farm equipment!! Way before the time I was twelve I could drive and knew MY limits and learnt to feel the cars handling etc through ya bum...Yes I lost control of many things including cars on farm but it didn't take long to learn where the limits where!!! Especially mine....You can't learn in glass houses!!!!!We as parents are in some ways far to protective.. But you cannot learn how to correct into a slide etc on open road...The diving courses that the pro's do on race tracks is a good start....
I used to work as a lineworker and got to some of these accidents first!!! I tell you it brings the emotion's back big time.....

[jonbays]

I think its all attitude not really skills. if we really had to have good driving skills to get a licence it would help but mostly to get older drivers off the road earlier. Its more about driver attiude to driving. Its not a right you dont own the road you dont race on the road its just transport. However at 18 I wouldn't have said that.

I think graduated licences are fine but they need to be power to weight and weight limit based and that will not be popular. Like with bikes 16 moped 17 125cc 18 250cc 21 unlimited but applied the same power to weigh rules and have licences for under a ton over a tonne and truck licences for over two tonne or towing. hard to enforc unpopular i dont know if there was a good idea i guess it would be done.

[Dazza XLT]

I believe a passenger limit needs to be introduced for young drivers.
It seems that many of these crashes involve a car load of people. I also know for a fact that when you are the driver of a car load of your mates, it normally ends up in something stupid happening (Speeding, Burnouts etc). (I'm not saying everyone does it, but I know I did a few times)
They also need to realise that this "showing off to your mates" can end up getting 5 people killed.
My workmate is encouraging his son to purchase a ute, so he doesn't cart all his mates around with him to try and lessen the chance of something stupid happening.

Cheers

[Greenhorn]

i rekon defensive driving courses should b mandatory 2 get ur p's, ive had mine for almost 1 year now and ive been in a lot of close calls and i would really like to do the course but havnt had enough time.

[Falcon_Phill]

It dosnt matter what anyone says people are going to have car accidents end of story. Take away cars, take away the accidents. Everyone realises what can happen, and everyone just thinks it wont happen to them.

[SpoolMan]

Education: we need to teach P plater’s car's can kill respect the car, in Australia approx 2000 people walk out the door a year and don’t come home because of a car accident.
On top of this we have the serious injuries we don’t get a statistic on.
Maybe all new licence holders should watch a video on what happens when you speed and do silly things on the road.

[Greenhorn]

its not just p platers that have accidents, ive seen sum pretty stupid middle age drivers too

[poolkeeper]

^ Yeah my sister mentioned to me, a p plater and a full licensed driver was racing on the street. Blah.... blah

P plater was charged, no mention of the full licensed driver???

[nitroman]

I'ts definetly an education and attitude thing. The trouble is the government buries it's head in the sand and blames speed for every accident that happens, and claims advanced driver education turns people into road racers. You need the advanced skills that come from driving on the edge in emergency situations or you are a sitting duck.
I remember talking to a female friend once about when she lost her car in the wet and wrote off the car. I said "What happened" and she said"The car went sideways in the wet so I hit the brakes,let go of the steering and started screaming!"
If she knew how to correct a slide she probably wouldn't have crashed.
Our country needs to start taking driver education more seriously like Germany for example that have a serious tafe type course where people learn to drive properly and appreciate the risks involved, as well as how their car works and basic vehicle maintenance.

[Falcon_Phill]

Originally Posted by nitroman

I remember talking to a female friend once about when she lost her car in the wet and wrote off the car. I said "What happened" and she said"The car went sideways in the wet so I hit the brakes,let go of the steering and started screaming!" If she knew how to correct a slide she probably wouldn't have crashed.

Rubbish. You can train a soldier to fight in a war, it dosnt mean when he gets there he wont freeze up / forget what to do when the shit hits the fan, which is probably what she did.

[Yaw]

Driver education is about the best option, but coupled with stringent power to wieght ratio and passenger restrictions. Perhaps raise the driving age too.


But ultimatley it will still not stop the immature ones, younger people are always gunna want to try things. No one can tell me that there is not enough education about the dangers of smoking, but yet young people still try it and get hooked on it.

The only real way to fix the problem is to raise the driving age to 21-25 where hopefully these people have gotten out of thier system peer pressure to try things, by this age they are much more equipped to make the right choice.
Yes there will still be the exceptions and everyone will say "look I told you that would not work" but i bet if it was done the road toll would be cut dramatically as would yours and everyone elses insurance preimums.

[MO]

Education and training, the theory starts in school at e.g. yr 9...the prac starts in say yr 10.

With the prac it starts out with learning how to steer,park etc..then when this is down pat we progress to lets say a paddock basher in a paddock on a set course.

Its here we start to learn that a car can spin out so easy,we learn throttle control,steering into slides and correcting.

Next we progress to motorkhana on dirt..then when this is down pat we move onto bitumen and when this is down pat we move onto...the circuit and the skid pan.

After this we then get out on the street and learn about idiot drivers for real,all the time this is done with instructors.

Of course out on the street means you are on your Ls.

Until you get your full licence you also have to undergo defensive and advanced courses.

Once you have done and passed all this..then and only then do you get a P or full licence.

Just my thoughts and needs a lot more detail but I think you get the idea.

[nitroman]

Originally Posted by Falcon_Phill

Rubbish. You can train a soldier to fight in a war, it dosnt mean when he gets there he wont freeze up / forget what to do when the shit hits the fan, which is probably what she did.

Well, think of learning any comlpex sport like golf or snow skiing. At first you get bombarded with information about how to do it, and at first your skills are very poor as your brain tries to compehend the information and put it into practice. Then you get better as you master those basic skills and then get more and more information on how to get better(if you want to of course) When your brain has the knowledge absorbed properly it (the knowledge)should come out of your brain automatically without effort.
What I'm saying is most people have very little knowledge of what happens to their car in a real world extreme driving situation (e.g slippery road,going sideways) and how to deal with it. Sure everybody is different and we all get caught out sometimes, but a bit of education could prevent a minor situation turning into a disaster.

[Ives]

I feel that driver's maturity (or lack thereof) is one of the MANY reasons this kind of accidents happen.

1) Have you seen how the kids drive home after all night watching drag-racing at the WSID?

2) Have you see how people drive home after watching any of the "The Fast And The Furious" movies?

3) Perhaps someone played Need For Speed all night at his/her friend's place and thought it's a good idea to emulate the game on the street.

If anyone can inject some sensibility to all the driver wannabes, I reckon that will reduce the rate of the accident.

[dave351cid]

1# lowering speed limits dont work , that crash was in the street behind my old place and would have 60km limit. not that any one goes 60. at night i would reguarly hear cars that must have been doing 140km or more.

2# you cant have a police man in every street all the time.

3# fixed speed cameras slow the traffic down within site of the camera. once your around the bend or over the hill its down with the foot again.

4# most young people dont get the chance to steer a car until they get their '' Ls " and then they have a few lessons in a lancer or accent with someone whos main job is to help them get their licence ,(so you practice the things that you will do in the driving test ) .

5# with the way the we have moved to high density, high technology living i dont think that young people of today are exposed to the real harsh realities of life. you can watch stuff on TV all day but you need to actualy feel it before it sinks in.

6# when you get a group of young people together they will allways try to push the bounderies.

7# i think that driver training needs to be taught from a younger age , even starting in primery school with basic understanding of the car and working up through the years to driving lessons including defensive drivers courses and having a car that they can actually hit things with to get a feel of how it feels ,ie ; a speed way racer.

8# there will always be crashes. wasnt there a police officer killed a few weeks ago in a simillar accident in brisbane.

[mik]

perhaps putting a scare into people before they get their license would be a good thing, hands up anyone thats had a car have a catastrophic left hand rear tyre deflation while going around a tight rh bend at 60 kph, then have the car spin and roll over on its roof in a split second, been there done that (clean undies please), a controlled sudden lose on a track somewhere and lessons how to avoid these things that occur when we least expect them should be mandatory , people don`t know when to draw the safety line, safe to overtake now ??? or not inexperienced don`t know their limits, the ones that die unfortunatley have found the ultimate limit, perhaps some physics lessons as well 1.5 ton car versus 25 ton tree = death

[snortycorty]

I believe driver education would help.

Also a major factor is attitude and maturity. The imaturity of some people is unbelievable, and the imaturity isnt restricted to a certain age bracket, but i do agree the majority of the immature ones are young.

IMO being a P plater myself, i would hate to have passenger restrictions. I pick up my little brother from school everyday and take him to dads, and often i also pick up my dads partners 3 kids from school which makes up a car load.
I know a couple who have two kids of their own. The guy has just got his P's, even though he is 23. What would they do if they couldn't take their kids anywhere?

[M14A-Mclaren]

For me as a young driver, I definitely think it is down to attitude and maturity that causes the accidents. When I am with a group of mates I can see how easy it would be to be tempted to do something stupid and some people will always give in.

In NZ I think that is a big problem along with how easy it is to get your license. A mate of mine who has been driving for just over a year is already right into the 'Boy Racer' (or whatever the Aussie version is) culture, doing drag racing along the motorway and drifting his MR2. That is pretty f'ed up IMO that after 1 year he is driving such a car and in such a way after the p!ss easy driving tests in NZ. You just need one unusual thing to happen and he'd be in deep.

Proper driver trainer and Driver attitude are the most important thing, I also think NZ should have some sort of limit of cars provisional drivers can drive like Australia does, although I don't know much on the Aussie system. Nothing to drastic that would ruin it for the people that actually have some natural driving talent.

My 2 cents.

[Green X]

Mate, teach people how to drive a car not how to pass a test!!

Handling and control in all different types of conditions, teach how to drive to conditions.

I have a HR truck licence, doesn’t mean I can safely drive a truck under most conditions, it just means I know how to drive like a Granny when the assessor jumps in the Cab.

Parents> Exactly what are you thinking letting your 17 year old son Jump into a High Pro-Formance car the second he gets his licence, the when he kills himself you on the news all upset and saying how we need to stop this from happening agene, well sorry what did you think was going to happen, you don’t need a law to stop it you need common ********* sense.


Power to weight, Will do ****** all, My first car was a 1985 Toyota corona, 2 litre carbie, 3 speed auto, It would still get to 150kp/h just took a little longer to get there, get a bit of moisture on the road and you could still whip it sideways around corners, get it on a gravel road or a grassy paddock and whooo baby!!!

Education, yeah maybe. We are educated that smoking is bad and farst food makes you fat and drinking destroys the brain, liver, kidneys Ect but people still Drink, smoke and eat chit food> get my point< people are stupid telling them something is bad doesn’t do much, they need to experience it first hand 90% of the time.

Look at most accident and think would of this law stoped that from happening or not, and remember just cause it’s illegal doesn’t mean people ant going to do it, you can’t bubble rap young people or drivers in genal they need to learn for them self.

I tell you what if I didn’t stuff around when I was younger and learn about car control and handling and my own limits I would be dead now. Not from doing something stupid but because of when something unexpected has a happened I have been able to react to the situation and keep control as I had a idea of how the car was going to behave and what to do and what not to do under the conditions at the time.

And finely People are going to die on the roads nothing can stop that!!

[uranium_death]

I will say this...
18 year olds are legally adults but mentally, many still have a long way to go.
And I'm no different. I turned 18 and thought I knew it all, but in reality I was still a little snot nosed shit who had a lot of learning to do in every aspect, including driving.

I'm 23 now and yeah, probably still naive in many respects, I'm a lot wiser.

I think defensive driving courses should be taken by all new license holders within the first 2 years of getting their license. There should be a decent rate for this too.

Education...there's enough of it. No matter what you tell some people, they'll defy it because they can.

Introduce harsher penalties. For example...one morning I heard one P Plater was driving along the Eastern Freeway at 180km/h, another at 160. Easy solution. Tear up their license and make them undertake their Learners license again, which they MUST hold for a minimum of 2 years and formally log 120 hours. Testing for these offenders MUST be harsher.

The current testing procedures are not difficult. A short driving test shows the basics. But it's too easy to drive safely then, and behave like a hoon when you're on your own.

There will always be accidents. People need to drive safer. If they don't, punish.

If fully license drivers are caught speeding, forget demerit points. They lose their license too.

[Falcon Coupe]

Looking at the way many P platers drive round my way nothing can be done.
Educate all you want, they just don't care.

[fiery]

Education is the main way to go but I also believe have somewhere cheapish for them to go to run amok..

We all want to burn off excess steam so to speak and whilst there are drag strips and some skid pan places and even a place that allows burn outs it is not enough..

Ok the reasons I say this are..
1. Drag strips: not everyone can afford the $36 (or whatever amount it might be at the time) to enter (I know it doesn't sound much, but it does add up). Plus not everyone can get to a track..

2. Skid Pan: On average you are looking at around $1000 for the day to hire a place out which means you have to charge a fair amount if you want to keep numbers down so that you get a decent amount of time on the pan..
Plus again, there is not that many places situated in accessible areas for everyone.

3. Burn Out Pads: I know of a few areas that have this but they run monthly or quarterly. Then there is sometimes the cars allowed have to be of certain things (run a certain time, a certain age, etc).. Plus there is a limit to the amount and again, not accessible to everyone.

I know personally that holding a skidpan day took the sting out of a few younger blokes that attended.

So is the answer not only education but having facilities available in more areas and at better rates??


just my quick 2cent thoughts...

[SpoolMan]

Originally Posted by fiery

Ok the reasons I say this are..
1. Drag strips: not everyone can afford the $36 (or whatever amount it might be at the time) to enter (I know it doesn't sound much, but it does add up). Plus not everyone can get to a track..

Money shouldn’t be an excuse for street racing or hooning, when it’s only the price of a carton of beer.
Consider what some spend on there cars, a night out at a club.
$20 for fuel, plus entry is a reasonably priced nights entertainment.

Lucky every State isnt like Calder $65.

[fiery]

Originally Posted by SpoolMan

Money shouldn’t be an excuse for street racing or hooning, when it’s only the price of a carton of beer.
Consider what some spend on there cars, a night out at a club.
$20 for fuel, plus entry is a reasonably priced nights entertainment.

Lucky every State isnt like Calder $65.

While I might agree with you (and yeah I do mostly), I am trying to look at it from a younger more immature outlook.
If having a night that is accessible to everyone regularly then maybe street racing would not be as big a problem.

There is not that many drag strips readily available and when you pay money to get a few runs and you are lucky to get one or two.. that is what most seem to comment on (no matter what age or how much cash they have or how often they go).

I can not speak for other States obviously but I guess I am generalising a bit too much..

I can't see how it could hurt to have more places, cheaper prices (or same price but more often).

I know that when my son starts driving, not only will he be doing as many driving courses as possible (a very small price to pay in a parents eyes I believe) and other activities like skidpans etc.. Plus of course the ear bashing every-time he picks the keys up hopefully will help.

But as a parent, what more can be done.. other than what I have already said now and previously?

[flappist]

Originally Posted by SpoolMan

Money shouldn’t be an excuse for street racing or hooning, when it’s only the price of a carton of beer.
Consider what some spend on there cars, a night out at a club.
$20 for fuel, plus entry is a reasonably priced nights entertainment.

Lucky every State isnt like Calder $65.

True, but my nearest track is Benaraby which is about 280km away.
The next closest is Willowbank which is about 400km away.
I can aford to travel that far but many young people can't so there is an "unofficial dragstrip" at Tuan than no one knows about except the security staff at the 24hr chip mill just up the road who call the police whenever they see headlights.

A lot of the problem really is video games and "2 fast 2 furious" style movies that tend to imply to young people that doing really silly things is cool and you never get hurt and even if you do you just press "restart" and you are all better again.

The licencing system up here is a joke. Learner drivers are taught to pass a test not control a motor vehicle. When I learned we used to go out into the bush and play at sliding etc because our cars were not powerful enough to spin the wheels on dry bitumen.

Maybe that is a possible but VERY unpopular solution. Limit new drivers to VERY underpowered vehicles.

Or better still:

The penalty for hooning is to have your licence endorsed "low power only" and restrict for a period of one or more years to 50kw/tonne manual only or whatever.
A large pink "H" plate must be displayed at all times. No excuses. If the only car in the family is a V8 or whatever then you WALK.
The penaly for breaching this is the same as unlicenced driving.

Driving in a wussmobile for a year will improve you skills significantly because you will have to learn to drive or you will never get anywhere.

[AWD Chaser]

I just got of my P's the other week, so now I'm not in the same branding boat as many others...

The best way to tackle this is driver education... I grew up on a farm too - riding and lossing control of bikes, etc... including rolling one farm quad....

Unfortunatley, Australia likes its big 6's and big 8's in family cars... There is already a power to weight ratio thingy in place in Victoria, which bans P platers driving I think, a BA (I6) or higher powered vehicle.... but, a Barina will still kill someone pretty easily at 140kph.... If you want to totally get rid of the problem, a GPS based licence with speed monitoring would be the best - think of the Movie "The 5th Element" with Bruce Willis, where it automatically takes points off his licence....

[XRQTOR]

[QUOTE=flappist]True, but my nearest track is Benaraby which is about 280km away.
The next closest is Willowbank which is about 400km away.
I can aford to travel that far but many young people can't so there is an "unofficial dragstrip" at Tuan than no one knows about except the security staff at the 24hr chip mill just up the road who call the police whenever they see headlights.

A lot of the problem really is video games and "2 fast 2 furious" style movies that tend to imply to young people that doing really silly things is cool and you never get hurt and even if you do you just press "restart" and you are all better again.

Mate i was going and watching the run's well before that movie came out, even before i got my licence.

The licencing system up here is a joke. Learner drivers are taught to pass a test not control a motor vehicle. When I learned we used to go out into the bush and play at sliding etc because our cars were not powerful enough to spin the wheels on dry bitumen.

I agree people are taught to pass a test there not taught driving skill's, this is what need's to be adressed. Teach people to judge speed and distances and the distance in which a car will pull up in.

Maybe that is a possible but VERY unpopular solution. Limit new drivers to VERY underpowered vehicles.

They'll still be an idiot regardless of what they drive, notice all the recent fatel accidents have been in low powered car's. To have fun or feel any form of rush they need to push the car hard, speed is the problem here not power.


Or better still:

The penalty for hooning is to have your licence endorsed "low power only" and restrict for a period of one or more years to 50kw/tonne manual only or whatever.
A large pink "H" plate must be displayed at all times. No excuses. If the only car in the family is a V8 or whatever then you WALK.
The penaly for breaching this is the same as unlicenced driving.

Driving in a wussmobile for a year will improve you skills significantly because you will have to learn to drive or you will never get anywhere.

Wrong driving a low powered car for a year will not make you a better driver, people need to be shown how to do things. Let them make mistakes then correct them.[/QUOTE]

I'm due to face court for some serious driving offences and im currecntly in the process of doing a offender's driving program run by the police, ambo's, RTA, fire brigade. They all blame highpowered car's for the death's of P plater's but in the last 12 months alone in nsw theyvé been restriceted to low powered car's yet there's been a 2o% jump in the death rate in my local area alone, the hwp driving instructor who told us this clearly pointed it out but still belive's that performance car's are the problem.

Now i may be looking at this all the wong way but every video i've seen and every picture ivé been shown while doing this course have basically all stemmed from 1 thing, driver inability. Not judging speed, not judging distance, not watching the road and they all lead to over correction or in some cases the wrong decsion being made and the loss of controll. Speed is a contributing factor some of the time but no car was ever designed to hit a pole or a tree at 6o+k's. Teach people HOW to drive not how to pass a test.

[FPV8U]

Power to Weight ratio's, Banning V8's & Turbo's is just a band aid...

All of you calling for the banning of these cars and enforcing of the power to weight regulations, can you tell me how that is going to help the death toll?

99% of these cars you see on the news are 6 cylinder falcons and commodores sure there is the odd 5.0L but even these DONT have as much power as a BF XT or VE Omega!

These rules and regs are just put in place to make govenments look like there trying to fix the problem, instead of spending some money on education and actually attempting to fix it.

[Barry_v]

how about all the 18-25yo apprentices that get seriously injured or killed at work due to inexperience? how about we introduce a P plate worker scheme. for the first 2 years of their working life they can only be employed in low risk situations and only on certain days of the week, and have their work rate slowed down to 50% of everyone else. also if they make a mistake they lose their P plates and go back on L plates, which means they have to go home and watch TV for a year.

some of the comments on this thread as just moronic. THINK about what you're typing. young people cant afford new cars. placing them in a 1600cc 1980s hatch is making them safer? they will crash ANY car they drive, so putting them in a deathtrap will make crashes more severe.

and curfiews? come on. go to a nightfill shift at your local supermarket and see how many P plated cars are in the carpark. how the hell are they going to get to work? exemptions? so they get pulled over every night and harrassed for papers nazi germany style?

Im not replying, go right a letter to your local paper if you think im another young idiot hoon satan worshipper. they'll put it in the pile along with the letters about "that young person who didnt give me his seat on the bus".