SA Road Safety Minister Tom Kenyon backs lifting driving age to 18

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YOUTH advocates have demanded the SA Government dump a proposal to raise the driving age to 18.

Road Safety Minister Tom Kenyon yesterday floated a proposal to lift the driving age as part of a 10-year strategy to cut car accident casualty and death tolls.

It came after the Government released a 36-page discussion paper, drafted by the Road Safety Advisory Council, outlining plans to cut the road toll to under 80 deaths by 2020.

It recommends improving roads, overhauling speed limits, and

updating the licensing system for young drivers.

While it does not explicitly call for changing the driving age, Mr Kenyon told The Advertiser: "We have to bite the bullet at some point."

Mr Kenyon said he was considering several reform options, including simply withholding the granting of P-plates until a driver's 18th birthday.


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Delaying the issuing of learner plates beyond the current age of 16 is also being debated.

Current restrictions allow a person to drive unaccompanied as early as their 17th birthday.

Youth Affairs Council of South Australia executive director Anne Bainbridge said the proposed changes would unfairly penalise competent young drivers.

"Raising the legal age for driving would create significant barriers to employment, education, training and social activities, and it will particularly impact regional and rural communities," she said yesterday.

"We accept that young people are over-represented in the crash statistics, and we also get that there are a number of factors that mean young people are more likely to be involved in crashes.

"We share the concerns of the broader community around young people's road safety, but we're cautioning against a punitive response."

Ms Bainbridge said better training for learner drivers should be targeted to fix the problem.

Latest police statistics show four people younger than 25 have been killed on the state's roads this year, compared with 11 deaths of people aged 60 and older.

But, long-term data shows people aged younger than 25 are three

times more likely to be involved in a serious accident.

The draft South Australian Road Safety Strategy 2020 states 90 per cent of all accidents are because of "mistakes or common lapses in judgment" and not risk-taking. Proposed measures to cut the road toll include:

RAISING spending on new roads and funding to upgrade old roads.

CUTTING speeds limits on suburban and major roads.

LIFTING enforcement of existing speed limits, including increasing the number of "point-to-point" speed cameras on highways.

PROMOTING use of new in-car technology allowing drivers to set a desired speed and eliminate the risk of going over.

ENCOURAGING the development and marketability of safer cars.

The strategy will be available for public comment until June 10.

Mr Kenyon said experience in Victoria had proved the merits of increasing the minimum driving age.

He said older teens had better-developed brains and were more able to comprehend the consequences of their actions.

Road Safety Advisory Council chairman Sir Eric Neal said 16 was too young to be driving and modern motorists faced increased risks from congestion and higher maximum vehicle speeds.

"Where the speed limits have been reduced there's been a significant drop in the road toll," he said.

Cutting the speed limit in suburban Adelaide to 50km/h led to a 20 per cent cut to fatalities and injuries, Sir Eric said.

"Speed should be related to the roads and the condition of the roads," he said.

"Some roads are quite capable of 110 or 100 (km/h). Other roads may only be safe at 80."

RAA managing director Ian Stone said the Government should increase spending on roads.

Opposition road safety spokesman Mark Goldsworthy accused Mr Kenyon of "making policy on the run".

"This proposal isn't even in the strategy document he was announcing," Mr Goldsworthy said.

"People can't be expected to engage in meaningful consultation if they haven't even been told what they're supposed to be responding to."

Aldinga Beach school student Dylan Saunders, 16, will do his final driving test tomorrow before getting his provisional licence.

If the age were raised to 18, he probably would give up his part-time job because of transport difficulties.

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