Susie O’Brien: Why I’ll still take my teen driving during lockdown
A teenage L-plater copping a $1600 fine for driving with her mother during lockdown has divided opinion, but the activity is far less harmful than many others the state deems essential, writes Susie O’Brien.
Opinion
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Victoria Police should withdraw the $1600 fine for non-essential travel issued to a 17-year-old driving with her mother on her L-plates.
The pair, Sharee Reynolds and her daughter Hunter, drove from Hampton to Frankston and didn’t get out of their car or stop anywhere. What’s the harm in that?
It makes no sense that someone can go to a shopping centre and buy a Chanel handbag or makeup, but not go for a drive on empty roads to give a teenager some driving experience.
Victoria’s lockdown laws do not rule out driving practice for L-platers, so I don’t blame Ms Reynolds and Hunter for going out when they thought it was safe to do so.
The problem is the inconsistent rules. As I’ve written before, getting a haircut, buying a bag of soil or, as the Prime Minister says, buying jigsaw puzzles is allowed – but we’re apparently not allowed to give a teenage driving practice.
I have a 16-year-old who’s been at home this week with his 14 and 10-year-old siblings and we’ve been going for drives with him behind the wheel. I didn’t ever imagine it was against the rules. We weren’t mixing with other people. We didn’t cross state borders. We went out in the car, pulled up somewhere isolated then got out and had a walk then got back in the car and drove home. On one occasion we bought some food to support local businesses. Buying food, even takeaway food, is allowed.
Although it’s not strictly essential, the drives were part of our exercise regime, which is allowed and deemed to be essential.
The walking tracks around our house are very busy and I’ve been keen to avoid them. Driving somewhere a few suburbs away and getting out for a walk where it was quieter seemed safer to me.
It’s even more confusing as Brett Sutton, the Victorian chief health officer said families could travel together to their holiday home as long as they stayed there. So driving on the roads to a beach hideaway or mountain chalet is viewed as essential, but going on a drive with an L-plater is not?
Under the NSW Police Frequently Asked Questions section on their website, the specific question is asked: “Can I take a learner driver for a lesson?”
The answer is that “ it would be a reasonable excuse for a person to leave their house to receive driving lessons (either from a driving instructor or a member of their family), given that this is a learning activity that cannot be done from home and is akin to the listed reasonable excuse of travelling to attend an educational institution where you cannot learn from home”.
It goes on to say that “Learner drivers could also continue to drive with a supervising family member for any of the listed reasonable excuses for leaving the house – for example, driving to the supermarket”.
Under those rules, me driving with my son and kids to get some exercise would presumably be acceptable in NSW.
There are signs that these restrictions are going to be in place for a long time. As parents we need to comply with them in a way that keeps ourselves and our children sane, as well as safe.
Sometimes that means making value judgements. In my mind, what we were doing was of no-risk to anyone else and gave my children a valuable break from the house. We could have walked around the block and gone to the supermarket, but that would have put us in contact with hundreds more people.
Apparently, the fine is under review, and so it should be. Just about every L-plater driving on the roads will be aged under 18, and unable to pay a $1600 fine like this one. The actions of the police officer smack of revenue raising – a case of the force wanting to be seen to be doing something rather than actually doing anything useful.
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