Call to let learners and P-platers drive faster

LEARNER drivers and P-platers are being tailgated and abused at an alarming rate, triggering calls for their restricted speed limits to be reviewed.

Driver trainer Noor Sheerazi (left) with former student Jasmine Sakoua who got her P plate last month.

LEARNER drivers and P-platers are being tailgated and abused at an alarming rate, triggering calls for their restricted speed limits to be reviewed.

Exclusive new research obtained by The Sunday Telegraph reveals road rage against young drivers is rife, with 94 per cent claiming they had been dangerously overtaken and cut off.

The NRMA survey also found 93 per cent had been tailgated while driving at their restricted speed limit and half had been abused, bullied and yelled at.

Nearly half of all drivers want learners and P-platers to be allowed to drive at whatever is the posted road speed limit, so they can keep up with traffic and reduce unsafe overtaking.

NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury said, with the community split on the restricted speed limits, it was “a conversation worth having”.

“One of the benefits of having a discussion with the community is to look at the pros and cons,” Mr Khoury said.

New P-plate driver Jasmine Sakoua said she has been the victim of frustrated motorists.

The new survey of about 1500 NRMA members also revealed 41 per cent felt frustrated being stuck behind provisional drivers travelling at a restricted speed limit.

In NSW, learners and P1 drivers have a restricted speed limit of 90km/h, increasing to 100km/h when then they progress to a P2 license.

Mr Khoury said abuse of young drivers had a lasting effect.

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“Often the behaviours that our instructors have seen and these learners have seen are road rage 101 and to do that to any driver is unacceptable — but to do it to a learner or a provisional driver can be much more impactful,” he said.

NRMA driving instructor Noor Sheerazi said road rage directed at new and nervous drivers was “getting worse” in Sydney.

“We would like the other drivers to remember a time when they were learners or P-platers and they started going out,” she said.

“The other thing is, whenever they see another driver doing it, they learn, in a way, that this is what happens on the road, so people are teaching bad habits to our learners and P-platers.”

Ms Sheerazi, an instructor for the past seven years, said busy lives and congestion were the main causes of bullying behind the wheel.

“People have a lot of things to do — their lives are becoming much busier so in that case, everybody is on the run all the time,” she said.

Year 12 student and new P-plate driver Jasmine Sakoua said she has been the victim of frustrated motorists.

“They don’t appreciate it when it’s getting late in the day and they’re already running late to go home and they have families to go to and you have a slow learner driver, like myself, right in front of them learning how to drive,” she said.

“So they start beeping at you and then they start cutting you off from out of nowhere.

“When they do that, you start to freak out a bit — it’s like, what did I do wrong?”