Going Solo

Did you know that P-plate drivers in their first year of driving are 33 times more likely to experience a vehicle collision than learner drivers?

Or that nationally, 227 novice drivers were killed last year...and took 113 passengers with them?

These are among the statistics that led Melbourne's Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC) to produce a new booklet, 'Going Solo'.

The booklet has a two-fold purpose, according to the centre's Jenny Oxley. It serves to inform parents of the perils their kids face as P-plate drivers and it offers parents a strategy for managing that risk.

The informational section begins with a preamble stating that inexperience is a far greater factor in young driver road trauma than 'hooning'.

Topics covered in this section include peer passengers, night driving, distractions, poor weather and environment, reckless driving, tiredness and driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Controversially, the 'strategic' aspect of the booklet encourages parents to enter into a contractual agreement with their kids.

This agreement is referred to as the 'Vehicle Access Agreement' and clearly outlines parents' expectations of their offspring when it comes to borrowing the family car or even using the teenager's own car during that critical period -- the first twelve months after being granted a licence.

Because individual needs vary, MUARC suggests parents can tailor the agreement's stipulations to suit their kids. The agreement applies for the first year of driving and is flexible enough to allow parents to 'impose' their own restrictions.

MUARC's research indicates that young drivers more likely to be involved in bad crashes are correspondingly less subject to parental guidance; what MUARC calls "a poor parenting style".

For those parents who cannot convince their P-plate driver kids to take part -- because those 18-year old kids are technically adults -- at least the 'Vehicle Access Agreement' will open lines of communication between parent and teenager and help to clarify the parents' concern about the risks on the roads.

If that reduces the incidence of collisions such as the one pictured, that will help a lot of 18-year olds make it through to old age.

The picture shows the aftermath of a P-plater ploughing his 'grey import' WRX into a pedestrian before stopping the car with a power pole. His two (male) passengers were killed and the pedestrian, who also died, was thrown 46 metres in the accident.

The collision occurred in 1999, after restrictions on power-to-weight ratios of cars driven by P-platers had been implemented in Victoria.

In this case, the vehicle was a grey import and there was no information available during the registration process to indicate the car was a high performance model. Certainly, Victoria Police know that privately imported WRX or Skyline models are not suitable for P-plate drivers, but that has to be provable in a court of law.

At the moment, a P-plater caught in a high performance car can be fined -- and even that won't happen if the arresting officer can't prove the car's performance is excessive -- but the fine is only a fraction of the amount that would be payable by a driver with a standard licence charged with driving a heavy commercial vehicle, for instance.

Coming legislation will close this loophole, however.

The picture was provided courtesy of Sergeant Peter Bellion of the Victoria Police Major Collision Investigation Unit, a man who has appeared on TV for the Traffic Accident Commission.

Sergeant Bellion cited statistics that show 30 per cent of crashes occur as a result of 'oversteering'.

As more cars with electronic stability programs enter the market, the annual road toll is likely to fall further than it has since the introduction of seat belts and RBT stations.

MUARC celebrates its twentieth year on Friday of this week and has had the support of Exxon Mobil for fifteen years. The 'Going Solo' booklet is available through Mobil service stations or can be downloaded from http://www.monash.edu.au/muarc/goingsolo.html

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