ATAR Notes: Forum
General Discussion => General Discussion Boards => Rants and Debate => Topic started by: brenden on April 19, 2018, 03:43:25 pm
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Thoughts?
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None.
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Initial instinct: "that's not okay, and the number has been set for a reason."
EDIT: Of course, morality isn't necessarily this black and white, but that was my initial reaction.
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None.
Agree. I think the numbers are reasonable.
HOWEVER - I do have concerns for those that perhaps don't have an adult at home that can supervise their driving (or can afford a qualified instructor). There are some programs with volunteers (I can't even think of the name...).
I was fortunate enough when I was learning to drive that I had grandparents that supported me with my driving because Mum was working every day until late at night. For some, that luxury definitely isn't there and we have to recognise that. Again... the issue of $$$ comes into play when we start talking about instructors. Particularly those in low socioeconomic areas (which is how i've grown up so paying for an instructor wasn't practical).
I know I clocked up quite a number of hours doing a trip along the Hume to the NSW border (Albury/Wodonga) and back a few times. That was around 6-7 hours in total per trip there and back.
I guess the question we should be asking is: how can we support those 16-17 year olds on their learners permit that don't have a supervisor for either financial/lack of access reasons?
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It's definitely tempting, especially for kiddies in single-parent households or if they don't have any parents for to get that amount of hours, because that's a damn long time.
But that doesn't make it okay, and I don't think it should be done. As nice as it'd be to skip and get a license early, there's an obligation to other people on the road to not be a fuckwit -- ensuring you have the requisitie skillset is a part of that.
I guess the question we should be asking is: how can we support those 16-17 year olds on their learners permit that don't have a supervisor for either financial/lack of access reasons?
I know my local council has a program. Pretty sure most councils have something similar. I'm in the program, and it's pretty handy, but the ratio of volunteers--students is absurd. It's very difficult to rely on this for all 120 hours.
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I know my local council has a program. Pretty sure most councils have something similar. I'm in the program, and it's pretty handy, but the ratio of volunteers--students is absurd. It's very difficult to rely on this for all 120 hours.
I totally agree. I know somebody who got their L's at 16 and still had it at 20 (with barely any hours) because parents were always working, rest of family living overseas and couldn't afford an instructor. They did a few lessons but it definitely makes it difficult if you don't have the luxury of money or a parent/carer at home..
And tbh the last thing parents want to be doing is supervising their child drive (as the focus has to be pretty much the same as driving yourself due to the inexperienced learner) when they come home from a 8-12 hour day at work... so it definitely makes it tough to get the hours. By no means am I saying forge the hours, just saying it's impractical for some to get the genuine 120.
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Why is a 20 year old with 95 hours less reliable than a 21 year old with 10 hours, all of which were with a driving instructor and dedicated towards passing the test?
17 year olds in WA only need 25 hours 💁♂️
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Why is a 20 year old with 95 hours less reliable than a 21 year old with 10 hours, all of which were with a driving instructor and dedicated towards passing the test?
17 year olds in WA only need 25 hours 💁♂️
I think that's answering a different question to the one posed in the OP, though.
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Very interesting question, as others have pointed out it's not 100% black and white ... Another point to consider, kind of leading on from this: , is that once you're over 21, the 120, the hours aren't required (https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/licences/your-ps/get-your-ps/preparing-for-your-licence-test/120-hours-driving-experience , checked to make sure rules hadn't changed :P ) ... So why does age mean you're exempt, and if so what's the difference between someone under that age if they're not going to do anything stupid and genuinely need a licence. Kind of going off on a tangent here, but are they kind of implying by this rule that 21+ Y.Os are more responsible, and if so is that discrimination...?
As somebody 21+ who is currently learning how to drive (no licence), my personal view is that the 120+ hours should still apply.
(Not sure if this view will remain consistent as I become more experienced.)
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As somebody 21+ who is currently learning how to drive (no licence), my personal view is that the 120+ hours should still apply.
(Not sure if this view will remain consistent as I become more experienced.)
Agreed - the government has set the number of hours for a reason.
The requirements are there to make our roads as safe as possible and, no matter how tempted I myself might get to forge sometimes (because yes, in some family situations, driving on L's is just plain difficult), this covers a large range of situations and skills needed when driving solo. Drivers with thousands of hours make mistakes all the time - it's not about convenience, it's about maximising the safety of yourself and the community - and a little bit of common sense.
(you could argue that Victoria's a nanny state and the hours should be dropped to WA standards, but tbh what would you prefer? Higher accident rates or a longer time learning?) Here's a link to a 2017 article on the stats.
edit: sorry if I offended anyone, I am very tight when it comes to laws (it's the German blood)
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Very interesting question, as others have pointed out it's not 100% black and white ... Another point to consider, kind of leading on from this: , is that once you're over 21, the 120, the hours aren't required (https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/licences/your-ps/get-your-ps/preparing-for-your-licence-test/120-hours-driving-experience , checked to make sure rules hadn't changed :P ) ... So why does age mean you're exempt, and if so what's the difference between someone under that age if they're not going to do anything stupid and genuinely need a licence. Kind of going off on a tangent here, but are they kind of implying by this rule that 21+ Y.Os are more responsible, and if so is that discrimination...?
Your brain is still developing in your teens and some parts don't become fully developed until ~25 years so yes on average someone older will take less risks and more likely able to control their impulses. Although very important to learn early (16-25) in order to make driving 2nd nature imo.
As for 120 hours idk most people can get pretty comfortable driving once they get to maybe 50 hours, assuming they drive in different environments and not just one route, however after this arrogance and overconfidence is probably the worst issue.
I'm still somewhere around 40- 60 hours. Have barely driven lately tho :P
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To answer the original question - I think it's morally justifiable if the learner has driven well over 200 hours supervised but for some reason or another the hours were not logged at the time of completion and they have to make up for it in the logbook. If you haven't done the hours and forge your logbook then you are jeapordising the lives of everyone on the road. But if you did WELL above the 120 hour limit and there are a heap of unlogged drives then I think it is morally okay although legally not. eg: after the first 20 hours of driving or so (all logged) you finish a drive with your dad and say "oh crap dad you didn't give me back my logbook after you signed it last week" and he says "don't worry mate I'll fill it out" and he takes a picture of the odometer and you go inside and the next week he says he'll do the same thing and then after doing 3 hours of driving every weekend from 16 to 18 plus some road trips you say "okay dad I'm booked in for my P's pass my logbook" and it turns out he never filled it out after any of those 3 hour sessions and you have done roughly 300 hours of driving and it's not accounted for and your test is in 3 days and you are booked in to do it 2 hours away because that's the only place that can do it so soon as your parents are going away on holidays the next week and you need to drive your grandma to her doctors appointments then I wouldn't have any moral objections to the forgery in this case. But you should still just get it together and fill out the hours when you do the driving and do 120 hours.
EDITS: Hit post before finishing typing woops
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What if you'd done 118 hours and couldn't be fucked with the other 3? If 50% of those hours was with a high-quality driving instructor, are you more irresponsible than someone at 121 hours who still felt shaky?
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What if you'd done 118 hours and couldn't be fucked with the other 3? If 50% of those hours was with a high-quality driving instructor, are you more irresponsible than someone at 121 hours who still felt shaky?
I get what you’re saying, the person who drove 3 less hours would be better !
Hours doesn’t determine skill at driving all the time , but in general it does :)
Accidents went down by 37% after the 120 hour rule was introduced .
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What if you'd done 118 hours and couldn't be fucked with the other 3? If 50% of those hours was with a high-quality driving instructor, are you more irresponsible than someone at 121 hours who still felt shaky?
The law is the law.
What if you applied this philosophy to WA drivers? "Ah, can't be fucked with doing a whole 25 hours, might as well cut it back to 20, I'll be fine".
It's still irresponsible and wrong, and tbh I think someone should take all the learning experience they can, no matter how comfortable they feel in the driver's seat.
Cars are giant metal death machines. I don't want an up-himself teenager crashing into me and killing me just because he couldn't be stuffed with a couple of hours in a log book.
It's that simple.
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The law is the law.
What if you applied this philosophy to WA drivers? "Ah, can't be fucked with doing a whole 25 hours, might as well cut it back to 20, I'll be fine".
It's still irresponsible and wrong, and tbh I think someone should take all the learning experience they can, no matter how comfortable they feel in the driver's seat.
Cars are giant metal death machines. I don't want an up-himself teenager crashing into me and killing me just because he couldn't be stuffed with a couple of hours in a log book.
It's that simple.
100% agree. The laws are there for a reason, and you should uphold them.
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I find this interesting, because in England the system is actually quite different (has been tricky for my parents to get around the new system, with me trying, slowly, to get my P's), i.e. you don't need to drive a certain amount of hours before you pass the test. Instead once you get your learners, you have lessons then practice until you feel ready, after which you need to book and pass both a theory exam, and a driving test. I believe the average learner spends about 60-70 hours behind the wheel, about half of which are with an instructor before they pass their test. I looked it up, and it appears that the UK actually has less road fatalities per 100 000 ppl than Australia as well. I think that definitely has something to do with more professional driving instruction. I had driving lessons here, but tbh they were pretty lackluster - didn't even learn how to parallel park! And they were sooooo expensive, in comparison to those that my friends were having in the UK :( I feel like making driving lessons easier to access would really make a difference here.
Not that I think forging hours is a good idea, or that I disagree with the premise that more hours is better, just thought it was an interesting comparison (mainly because its been the topic of conversation in my house for a while aha)
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I find this interesting, because in England the system is actually quite different (has been tricky for my parents to get around the new system, with me trying, slowly, to get my P's), i.e. you don't need to drive a certain amount of hours before you pass the test. Instead once you get your learners, you have lessons then practice until you feel ready, after which you need to book and pass both a theory exam, and a driving test. I believe the average learner spends about 60-70 hours behind the wheel, about half of which are with an instructor before they pass their test. I looked it up, and it appears that the UK actually has less road fatalities per 100 000 ppl than Australia as well. I think that definitely has something to do with more professional driving instruction. I had driving lessons here, but tbh they were pretty lackluster - didn't even learn how to parallel park! And they were sooooo expensive, in comparison to those that my friends were having in the UK :( I feel like making driving lessons easier to access would really make a difference here.
Speaking anecdotally only, it is said that because Australia is such a big country Australians are more likely to accept and do long distance drives than the British (taking the first Google result for both suggests 15,500 km / year against 12,700 km / year). If so, which is the better measure - fatalities per person, or say fatalities per passenger mile (which airlines use)?
Thoughts?
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Speaking anecdotally only, it is said that because Australia is such a big country Australians are more likely to accept and do long distance drives than the British (taking the first Google result for both suggests 15,500 km / year against 12,700 km / year). If so, which is the better measure - fatalities per person, or say fatalities per passenger mile (which airlines use)?
Thoughts?
Can definitely agree with the first statement. When we still lived in England, the 45 minute drive to Brighton seemed like the longest drive ever - now that is my morning commute to uni!
I'm not sure with the second statement - I don't disagree with it, I just don't know aha. I feel like the density of drivers in the cities in the UK would still be a factor which could sway those results (ie. more drivers on the roads at a given time), though I don't really know enough about this stuff to have a definitive opinion :)
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In theory I’m entirely for doing 120 hours but I’m in a position where it’s not easy to do. I’ve got 3 older siblings who are also on their Ls and my dads not around. My mum hardly ever has the time or energy to let us go driving and I can’t afford to get lessons for the whole time. My council has a L2P program but I don’t even know if I qualify because I do have access to a car and driver.
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Society hasn't figured out whether it views permission to drive as a privilege, a right, or a necessity. It may well never figure it out, but just veer between the different alternatives. Current rules on learners are very much that it's a privilege with associated heavy responsibilities and a duty of care on the state. I tend to agree with this, and as already raised the statistics show reduced crashes with experience.
However, it is a fact that not being able to drive can restrict employment opportunities and many other life choices, and the number "120" is a standard that is reasonable but entirely arbitrary. Experience is on a scale, one set of 120 hours will contain different experiences from another, and hopefully it is clear that you don't suddenly become a 37% better solo driver the instant your documented hours click over from 119 to 120. In my book, viewing 120 hours as "100+ properly documented hours" is well within the spirit and intent of the law (though obviously not the letter).
Finally, you are also able to apply for an exemption from the 120 hour requirement in cases of hardship - though I doubt they grant this very often.