Arrogance, not ignorance, the biggest problem for learner drivers
The most common worst learner driver breaches aren’t because they don’t know the rule – but because they chose to break it anyway.
SA News
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Thousands of learner drivers are ignoring the most basic road safety behaviours, with many taking risks driving on their own or without L-plates.
SA Police statistics show 3628 L-platers were caught during the past financial year without a qualified supervising driver in the car.
Breaking the well-known rule topped the list of offences, followed by driving without L-plates on their vehicle (3029 cases) and failing to immediately produce a licence (1033).
RAA road safety spokesman Matthew Vertudaches said the figures showed bad decision making was a problem for younger drivers, rather than not knowing the rules.
“RAA is disappointed that some learner drivers are making bad decisions on the road,’’ he said.
“Some of the more common offences committed by learner drivers are easily avoided, such as remembering to appropriately display the L-plates and to carry their licence.”
Mr Vertudaches said figures showed new drivers had a crash risk almost double that of someone who had been driving for 12 months.
“Learners need to be aware of their limitations due to a lack of experience and, like all other motorists, obey the road rules.”
He said the idea of learners thinking they could leave on a journey without help from an experienced supervising driver was concerning.
He urged all learners to have some lessons from a professional driving instructor.
The RAA is part of an ongoing Federal Government funded campaign, Keys2drive, which has so far delivered 750,000 free driving lessons to learners.
Mr Vertudaches said a survey of more than 2200 parents and other learner driver supervisors from across the country who took part in the Keys2drive program found:
54 PER CENT said they applied their increased knowledge of road rules in their driving.
74 PER CENT increased discussions with their learner about road safety risks for novice drivers.
94 PER CENT said the learner had a greater appreciation of the risks facing new solo drivers.
In total, learner drivers committed nearly 9500 offences in the past five financial years, generating $3.5m in fines for the State Government. They included some of the most serious road safety breaches, such as drug-driving (265), drink-driving (100), and using a mobile phone behind the wheel (36).
Mr Vertudaches said it was concerning that in all of the top six categories, learners increased the times they were caught in 2019-20, despite being on the road far less because of COVID-19.
