A restricted driver is at the greatest risk of having a crash in the first six months of driving solo than at any other time of their life. This increased risk is partly due to driving inexperience.
Safer Journeys identifies young drivers as an area of high concern. This is because young drivers on their restricted licence are over-represented in crashes on New Zealand roads. Restricted drivers are seven times more likely to be involved in a fatal or serious-injury crash than other drivers. (Source: Ministry of Transport: Young Drivers Crash Fact Sheet, 2015)
The challenge
Many parents believe their teenager is a fully competent driver once they have passed their restricted licence test. But this isn’t the case. A restricted licence is called this because it restricts the way in which the licence holder can drive; it has two conditions attached to it. They are not allowed to drive between 10pm and 5am or carry passengers unless they have a supervisor with them (there are some exceptions).
A restricted licence allows the holder to drive independently but they cannot drive after 10 pm at night. They are also unable to drive with passengers in the vehicle unless one of the passengers is a formal supervisor. That is they hold a full current New Zealand drivers licence for at least two years, they sit in the front passenger seat and are able to take control of the vehicle should the need arise.
But breaking these conditions appears to be the norm.
Approximately fourteen percent of restricted drivers breach their licence conditions and are detected by Police each year.
However, self- reported breaches of licence conditions are much higher. In a recent Otago University Study of young New Zealand drivers, two-thirds of drivers reported driving at night (10pm - 5am) without supervision and 78% had driven unsupervised with passengers (source: Rebecca Brookland and Dorothy Begg, Testing Risk Segmentation Model for Young Drivers with the New Zealand Drivers Study Dataset, Final Report, December 2014).
We want to make the restricted driving rules more meaningful to parents so that they reassess the risk, see real value in the licence conditions and realise that they are solely there to protect young drivers from situations where they could get into trouble.
All parents want to keep their kids safe. They can help do that by ensuring their teens stick to the rules.
The target audience and our approach
Our campaign continues to target parents of young drivers on their restricted licence.
A restricted driver is still a new driver. They might be able to perform the tasks of driving but they haven’t yet had the experience of handling other potential dangerous situations on the road, of which there are many. If you add distracting passengers and driving after dark into the mix, young drivers become even more vulnerable.
We all know that parenting teens isn’t that simple - it’s sometimes much easier to pick battles and limit the number of rules that are imposed and enforced. Given that a restricted licence is mutually beneficial to both parents and teens, it’s not too surprising that the restricted licence conditions become one of those rules that parents and teens alike are comfortable to let slide.
This campaign aims to encourage parents to enforce the two restricted licence conditions and show them that they are there for a reason. They limit the opportunity for situations to arise in the car which makes their young drivers driving experience more risky. They enable a young driver to build experience on the road without having to have a supervisor with them. At the same time they limit their exposure to two of the riskiest situations for their age group.
The campaign
The campaign launched on 13 March 2016 on television and cinema. It also has an online presence with advertising through TVNZ On Demand, 3Now On Demand. Other support advertising includes print and radio.