AA wants schools to teach teenagers driving safety

The Automobile Association wants driving safety to become part of the education curriculum for teenagers.

Road trauma was the leading cause of death and injury for people aged 15 to 19. Each year 70 died and 2500 were injured, the latest edition of the quarterly publication AA Advocate said.

Yet the Ministry of Education's health and physical education curriculum for years 10 to 13 made no reference to teaching safety in and around vehicles.

The education system had taken a role in educating students for adult life in every other respect but had ignored this "life-and-death" issue, the publication said.

It was time the ministry took up the responsibility for teaching safe driving by developing resources and curricula, and by being represented on the National Road Safety Committee alongside transport agencies and the police.

Driving safety was not a matter of teaching young people to physically drive a car but how to manage the safe use of one.

Almost all teenagers who died on this country's roads were male.

The cost of spending half a day each term educating the 150,000 males aged 13 to 17 about safe driving would probably be about $5.9 million, the publication said.

That was the same amount as provided to police in the 2005/06 Land Transport New Zealand safety administration programme to teach young children about road safety.

In contrast to the way youngsters were treated, the safety programme provided no funding, outside typical licence testing and compliance policing, for teaching teenagers about vehicle safety and general road user behaviour.

"In this crucial matter of life-and-death, teenagers are treated as adults. The problem is they simply aren't ..."

And while the education curriculum made no reference to teaching vehicle safety to teenagers, repeated mentions were made to teaching good "road hygiene" to years 1 to 4. Each year about eight children in that age group died on the roads and 383 were injured.

Educating the 150,000 females in the 13 to 17 age group might not cost as much as teaching the males of the same age, as the females tended to be safer drivers and might not need as much effort, the publication said.

"Many schools continue to treat the road deaths of their students as an inexplicable tragedy, but not one that should interfere with the business of education.

"The notion that education is a preparation for adult life -- which will include driving -- does not appear to have been considered."

While some schools were teaching students how to survive on the roads, such a response was not standardised or required, the publication said.

- NZPA