Thursday, 11 September 2025

Learner driver safety

Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (17:36): (1968) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action that I seek is for driving instructors in Victoria to have mandatory cameras and GPS trackers installed in their cars. Picture this: you are a shy and quiet 17-year-old going for your first ever paid driving lesson. Many people listening right now may still remember what this experience was like. You may have felt a bit nervous and intimidated to be in such a confined space with someone you had only just met. In this situation, your instructor tells your parents that students just tend to do better without a parent supervising. The instructor then takes you away from the main test route to a secluded area on the edge of town, praises your driving and places a hand between your legs. This incident is disturbing, but it is not totally fictional. It was 17-year-old Bodhi Genis’s experience during her first paid driving lesson. Last week an ABC investigation uncovered that more than 300 people have been sexually harassed by their driving instructors, the majority of them being young women and young girls. The alleged incidents date all the way back to the 1960s, with numerous women recounting how they were groomed, groped and verbally abused in an environment that was meant to be safe and educational.

Driving instructors are required to have a working with children check and vulnerable people check, but if this year has taught us anything about the systemic failures in safeguarding Victoria’s minors, a check is not enough to keep them safe. There is currently no legal requirement for driving instructors to install cameras or GPS tracking systems in any state or territory across Australia with the exception of South Australia, which is set to introduce such legislation soon. In Victoria taxi drivers are required to have a camera inside the car, a measure to protect both drivers and passengers from potential harm or abuse. Like taxis, learner drivers are collected from their own homes, revealing their private address, and are strapped into a car with a complete stranger, yet no legislation exists to prevent instances of instructor misconduct. For some women the impact of their sexual assault and sexual harassment during the process of obtaining their licence has led them to abandon ever getting one altogether. This is unacceptable. The action that I seek is for Victoria to follow South Australia’s lead by introducing meaningful protections for learner drivers, including mandatory cameras and GPS trackers in driver training vehicles.