Barrier Daily Truth

Learners can’t access driver safety program

Saturday, 11th February, 2012

LEARNERS: Kulaii Williams (17), Shelley Hollingworth (16) and Courtnee Ferguson (17) said learner drivers would benefit from having accredited driving instructors.

Learner drivers in NSW are being encouraged to join a driver safety program, but not in Broken Hill.

The ‘keys2drive’ program to help the reduce the incidence of road crashes involving young drivers offers free lessons from accredited driving instructors.

Unfortunately for young drivers in the city, there are no accredited instructors to provide this program.

Local learners Shelley Hollingworth, Kulaii Williams and Courtnee Ferguson said this wasn’t fair.

“We don’t have a proper person teaching us all the rules,” said Shelley (16).

Seventeen-year-old Courtnee said her parents worked and that trying to get them to take her driving was hard.

They all agreed that having this free program would benefit them and if it was available they would use it.

Kulaii (17) said her mother was the only fully-licensed driver in her family and she would be able to get her driving hours up if there was a free program like ‘keys2drive’.

According to the program’s website, the Australian Government has committed $17 million over five years to develop and implement the program which was developed by the Australia Automobile Association.