Tuesday, 6 February 2024

Driver education

Rikkie-Lee TYRRELL (Northern Victoria) (18:41): (660) My adjournment matter is addressed to the Minister for Education. Last year Victorian roads saw an increase of 24.1 percent in fatalities, or an extra 58 lives lost. Of those, there was an alarming 47 per cent increase of fatalities in drivers and passengers aged between 21 and 25 years. Even worse, the death toll of those aged between 16 and 25 years was a total figure of 60. That is a 20.06 per cent increase of the overall lives lost on Victorian roads in 2023. The figures for young drivers highlight a lack of education on, understanding of and respect for our Victorian roads. Many of these incidents may have been avoided had our young drivers been exposed to a more thorough and rigorous introduction to our road rules, road safety and the importance of vehicle maintenance. While some parents and carers of youths have outstanding road safety skills and knowledge to pass on to their children, many drivers on Victorian roads capable of having a drivers licence are in no way equipped to educate new drivers. This may be due to a lack of available time, the inability to calmly teach a new driver or being reckless drivers themselves, as suggested in the 24.1 per cent increase of lives lost just last year alone.

I do not wish to see our young people being lost on the roads because they were denied the time, patience and correct guidance from those who are deemed responsible enough to show them how to be safe drivers. If students in years 10 through to 12 had access to a well-structured educational course dedicated to road safety, driving skills and basic vehicle maintenance, they would be better prepared for their first years on the road than many young drivers are today. Making this course available to all Victorian students through their schooling would enable qualified educators to correctly teach these students this vital and potentially life-saving knowledge. The action that I seek from the minister is to implement a drivers safety skills and basic vehicle maintenance module into the Victorian secondary school curriculum, making it available to all students from years 10 to 12.