Author Archives: NRMA Policy Team

About NRMA Policy Team

The Government Relations and Public Policy Team carries out most of NRMA’s advocacy work to improve issues affecting motorists, such as safer roads, safer drivers, safer vehicles, transport economics and sustainable transport. The team also supports the NRMA Board in lobbying governments and organisations on behalf of our Members.

Do parents make good driving instructors?

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Roadside assistance NRMA

Are you a good driving instructor?

Almost one-in-three learner drivers have been in a car with a speeding driver, according to a new NRMA Safer Driving School survey.

The survey of 300 learner drivers across NSW and the ACT found 32% have been exposed to speeding while their parents or other supervisors were driving.

The survey also found learner drivers were being exposed to their parents’ bad habits, with the worst offending habits being:

  • Not having both hands on the wheel (38%)
  • Speeding (32%)
  • Talking on a mobile phone without a hands-free device (19%)
  • Failing to indicate when turning (19%); and
  • Road rage (16%)

NRMA Motoring & Services Director Coral Taylor says young drivers will pick up on the driving habits of their supervisors – good and bad.

“All supervisors need to remember that when a learner is sitting next to them in the car they will copy the way they drive, so they need to be a model of good behaviour,” Ms Taylor said.

Are you a good driving instructor or do you think you need to brush up on your driving skills before supervising your kids?

Driverless Cars – Taking YOU out of Driving

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driverless car

The driverless car - would you drive one?

We’re inherently lazy things, and ever since ol’ Karl Benz invented the car we’ve been trying to think up ways to get the things to drive for us. Airplanes can do it for goodness sake!

The most serious attempts to build a driverless car began back in the 1970s with a group of, funnily enough, Japanese enthusiasts. They failed. But mankind pushed on and eventually America got involved, or rather the American Army got involved. The Defence Advanced Research Program Agency (DARPA) kicked off its Grand Challenge in 2004. Enter Google, which recently lost a court case in the States to allow its driverless cars (a driver does sit behind the wheel, but the car does all the work unless it’s an emergency) to cruise the highways and byways.

Fast forward to now and BMW has announced it has built and tested a driverless car that’s almost ready to take on the Autobahn. According to the press pack (and this really is like reading the Total Recall script about the Johnny Cabs), ‘researchers have equipped a BMW 5 Series with intelligent software as well as vision assistance and environment detection systems. The advanced automated assistance function for motorway journeys can be activated with the push of a button. From this point on, the prototype system can autonomously control acceleration and braking, and it can safely pass slower vehicles.

‘One of the greatest challenges early in the project involved reacting to vehicles merging on to the motorway at exit and access points – but even this problem could be solved with a cooperative approach. The prototype system reacts to the situation by allowing the merging vehicles to join the traffic flow, and it can even change lanes giving the merging vehicles adequate space to enter traffic safely. This is possible up to a speed of 130km/h, but in compliance with current traffic regulations regarding speed limits and such things as prohibited passing zones.’

BMW admits it isn’t ready just yet to roll out its ‘auto pilot’ and that the next stage in its development is to ‘teach’ the prototype how to deal with road construction sites and motorway junctions.

How comfortable would you be with a car that, on the freeway at least, was able to do the driving for you?

P-Plate driver restrictions

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Mazda CX7

P-platers can't drive turbocharged cars like the Mazda CX7.

Last week Wallabies fullback and P-plate driver, Kurtley Beale, had a charge of driving a high-powered vehicle dismissed when it was revealed he had no idea he was prohibited from driving his turbocharged Maxda CX7.

Back in 2005 NSW introduced laws to prohibit P-plate drivers from driving ‘high-performance vehicles’.

The RTA website states: 
“The prohibited vehicle condition restricts provisional (P1 and P2) drivers from driving certain high performance vehicles. The condition applies to provisional licences issued on or after 11 July 2005. The scheme aims to prohibit young driver access to vehicles that are overrepresented in young driver crashes.

Prohibited vehicles are those with:

  • Eight or more cylinders (except diesel).
  • A turbocharged engine (except diesel).
  • A supercharged engine (except diesel).
  • Engine performance modifications that require an engineers’ certificate.
  • Certain high performance six-cylinder engine vehicles or other vehicles as described in the publication Novice Drivers – High Performance Vehicle Restrictions.

The following vehicles are not prohibited vehicles and may be driven by provisional licence holders:

Suzuki Cappuccino 2D Cabriolet Turbo 3 698cc (released between 1/01/1992 – 1/12/1997).
Daihatsu Copen L880 2D Convertible Turbo 4 659cc (released from 1/10/2003).
Smart vehicles (all models).

The RTA also provides a “guide to moderate performance vehicle exemptions” (which is mostly made up of small engine European vehicles) alongside its comprehensive list of banned vehicles.

Obviously the RTA has gone to a lot of effort in producing its “P1/P2 – Prohibited Eight Cylinder, Turbo and Supercharged High-Performance Vehicles” list, but the NRMA would like it to be updated to better reflect today’s motoring environment. There are many anomalies with this restriction that just don’t make practical sense.

For instance, a non P-plate legal Mazda CX7 (turbo) as driven by Beale will take around 10.3 seconds to reach 100km/h whereas a P-plate legal current-generation six-cylinder Ford Falcon will reach the legal limit in around 7.3 seconds. The turbocharged 1.8-litre four-cylinder VW Golf TSI Comfortline (0-100km/h in around 8.4 seconds) is banned yet the Mazda SP25 (0-100km/h in around 7.8 seconds) is legal.

Classic cars haven’t escaped the list either, with things like a 1962 Chevrolet Impala or 1961 Pontiac Parisenne also being off-limits to P-plate drivers.

But are these laws working and is there a better way to keep young drivers from being over represented in crash statistics?

Have you been affected by this law when it came to purchasing a new family car?

Voters warn no carbon tax on fuel

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man at petrol pump

Would you support a carbon tax if it means an increase in fuel prices?

The inaugural NRMA Motoring & Services More4Members Cost of Living survey has found almost two-thirds of people will not support a political party that proposes a Carbon Tax if it means fuel prices will increase.

The survey of around 1,200 Members found the following:

  • 60% will not vote for a political party that introduces a Carbon Tax that forces up the price of fuel.
  • 87% said their cost of living was higher than 12 months ago, while two-thirds were suffering from stress as a result.
  • 55% believe the cost of living will increase substantially over the next 12 months, while 15% said they had taken on a second job or were working longer hours to cover expenses as a result of increasing costs.
  • The average household spent an extra $50 on groceries compared with last year, with 82% highlighting they eat out less than they did 12 months ago.
  • Almost 40%  would like to see the Federal Government reduce power costs, another 19% want to see downward pressure on interest rates and 18% want to see reduced fuel costs.
  • More than 42% used discount vouchers in order to save money, with almost a third admitting to using vouchers frequently. And 85% of people who used discount vouchers used them for fuel.

NRMA President Wendy Machin said the NRMA would seek assurances from the Australian Government that the Carbon Tax would not force up the cost of fuel and cause further strain on families struggling with the cost of living.

“Our members are struggling under the cost of living pressures and it is the NRMA’s responsibility to fight to ensure that every cent increase on a litre of petrol brought about by the Carbon Tax is offset by a reduction in the fuel excise,” Ms Machin said.

“The NRMA surveyed our Members because we wanted to ask average Australians about the real effect of rising costs and the ways they look to save money.

Would you support a carbon tax if it means fuel prices will increase?

10-point plan to tackle Sydney’s traffic congestion

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Sydney traffic congestionMorning peak bus congestion York St, Sydney

NRMA has released a Decongestion Strategy Report (click on the link to read it in full: PDF 3MB/40 pages) designed to free up Sydney’s clogged streets and motorways. The ten steps are neither costly nor difficult to implement.

NRMA Motoring & Services President Wendy Machin said the NSW Government needed a new strategy to manage Sydney’s traffic to make it easier for commuters to get in and around the city.

10 ways to relieve Sydney traffic:

1. Appoint an anti-congestion Director within the RTA to manage congestion on Sydney’s major road network.

2. Develop a motorway management team designed to manage delays and/or incidents on a daily basis

3. Appoint more traffic signal staff to proactively respond to delays or incidents on the road network – there are currently only 15 people responsible for operation over 4,000 traffic signals across the State

4. Review parking restrictions on major roads – the last major review was undertaken in the lead up to the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000

5. Clear traffic incidents faster – create time limits to clear incidents (with a maximum target time of 3 hours to clear major incidents and 25 mins for minor ones).

6. Provide reliable and up to date information through the use of a dedicated traffic and transport radio network,  providing live traffic leads via mobile and/or email.

7. Promote flexible working hours to reduce demand during peak hours

8. Improve the forgotten transit lanes and highlight them using orange to make them more visible

9. Remove traffic signs that give motorists the wrong information

10. Adopt challenging performance measures to avoid lengthy delays like those experienced on the F3 freeway

 

What do you think of this plan and what measures do you think would ease Sydney’s traffic?