P-Plate Passenger Restrictions

To:  Legislative Assembly of Victoria and Premier John Brumby

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The signatories below are future and current L-Plate and P-Plate drivers, parents, friends and other drivers who feel passionately that the new law, which restricts the amount of passengers between the ages of 16 and 21 permitted in first-year P-Plate drivers’ cars, is an unnecessary, inconvenient and pointless new law.

These people draw to the attention of the House, the following reasons in which this law should not be passed:

- The most important aspect of what this law will change is the environment. With this law in place, car-pooling for teenagers and young adults becomes virtually impossible, thus forcing a considerable amount of extra P-Plate drivers onto the road in separate cars. Not only will this significantly increase the amount of greenhouse gases in the air, contributing to global warming and dramatically increasing the use of fossil fuels in the country, it will also cause much more congestion on the roads. Roads will deteriorate much quicker with the added strain of the extra cars.

- Many people rely on their friends to get them to school, and other educational institutes. Many parents rely on their P-Plate sons and daughters to transport their siblings which may lie in the restricted age range. With this new law in place, these things just can’t happen anymore.
Designated drivers won’t exist anymore, due to the fact that they can’t carry more than one passenger, which will assist in causing a major increase in drink-driving P-Platers.

- As first year P-Platers, which are restricted to having only one friend with them, there is a lack of experience in dealing with distractions from the back seat. Having no experience with a back seat full of loud friends will really put anyone on the spot when it comes to being designated driver after the restriction is lifted, and they may not be able to handle it. It will cause a huge experience gap. It’s all part of a learning process, in which Premier John Brumby is trying to take away.

- Policing this new law will be almost impossible. Police aren’t going to be able to judge the ages of passengers from a distance when they’re looking at a car travelling at 100km an hour. Unless the state is going to be hiring twice as many police, this is ludicrous. Victoria Police have more important things to deal with than to be worrying about petty things like a first year P-Plater driving with two friends. The police need to spend their time policing everybody, and not just targeting P-Platers.

- Limiting the number of passengers in a car will not stop things like dangerous driving, and it certainly won't make the roads any safer; if anything it will prevent P-Platers from getting the experience they need to be safe drivers. To top it off, even if this law does come into effect, it won't stop the irresponsible driving exhibited by youths, it will just delay it until they're older.

- With the amount of P-Platers driving on the road - almost everyone being in their own car - if people are heading towards the same place, they are going to start to race. This will be the beginning of a very common street-race along the highway, just to make sure you’re not the last to arrive.

- Forcing people to find alternative transport will cause many problems, especially in rural areas. Public transport in rural areas is dreadfully scarce, with people having very little choice of when and where they can go. This law will cause an enormous strain on the already inefficient public transport system.

- Getting your P-Plates signifies that you have earned enough trust to drive responsibly without supervision. While on a Learner’s Permit, drivers are allowed to carry as many passengers as they like. With the trust to drive responsibly unsupervised, why not give P-Platers the trust to carry more than one of their friends at a time? Why not actually give P-Platers some real trust and give them some lee-way?

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The P-Plate Passenger Restrictions Petition to Legislative Assembly of Victoria and Premier John Brumby was created by and written by Cameron Belstead (cam.belstead@gmail.com).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.