Licence Laws for Older Drivers

Mr ROB STOKES (Pittwater) [5.44 p.m.]: I bring to the attention of this House the discriminatory treatment in New South Wales of older drivers. I wrote to the Minister for Roads about this issue in April this year to point out the concerns that many Pittwater residents had in relation to the current licensing regime. The Government responded with a proposal to change the licensing requirements for older drivers in this State, which has drawn a massive reaction from my community of Pittwater. Last week I held a public meeting at Mona Vale Community Centre that was attended by more than 400 people, both old and young, who gave me a very clear message of how they felt about the Government's plans.

Quite simply, the Pittwater community is sick of older people being treated like second-class citizens. The situation in which older drivers must sit for a driving test simply on the basis of their age is discrimination, pure and simple. The fact that older drivers have a lower crash risk per kilometre than young drivers is clearly not considered at all. A series of votes was conducted amongst the approximately 400 people who attended the meeting. The results were extremely clear-cut. By almost unanimous votes, the meeting rejected both the existing system and the proposed changes. In particular, those who attended the meeting were mystified and angered by one of the Government's proposed changes, that is, that older people will not have to take the mandatory driving test if they agree to drive no more than 10 kilometres from their homes.

This proposal is bizarre and raises some big questions. Surely it is unsafe for drivers to constantly watch their trip counter to see how far they have driven. What happens to the insurance of older drivers who stray just outside their 10-kilometre leash? Will they be left without insurance if a younger driver smashes into their vehicle? Where is the evidence that older persons are less likely to be involved in an accident within 10 kilometres of their homes than further afield? Surely if it is safe for an older driver to travel 10 kilometres, why is it not safe to drive 15 or 20 kilometres? And what happens if an older driver takes the test, but fails? Can he or she still drive within a 10-kilometre radius like those who elect not to take the test?

A 10-kilometre restriction in Pittwater would be next to useless. Anyone living in the northern part of my electorate treats the idea of a 10-kilometre restriction with the derision it deserves. Such a restriction barely allows people from Palm Beach or Avalon to drive to their nearest hospital at Mona Vale. It will not get them anywhere near the proposed new hospital at Frenchs Forest—and no, there is no direct public transport from Pittwater to the new hospital site. The proposed 10-kilometre restriction would leave many older people stranded. Older drivers have told me that mandatory licence testing is often conducted in an arbitrary and capricious manner. One constituent explained that she was failed when the instructor deliberately left his seatbelt undone, and immediately ended the test the moment she started the vehicle. That was nothing more than a mean trick, and there are dozens of stories to match it.

I turn now to discrimination. The current policy and its proposed changes discriminate against older drivers purely on the basis of their age, which results in real injustice for older people. Indeed, it seems questionable whether the current policy is intra vires. The Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 states that the arrangements for the licensing of older drivers may be exempt from anti-discrimination laws if they are "imposed in order to meet safety considerations that are reasonable in the circumstances". Therefore, the Government must demonstrate that what is being proposed is reasonable and that it is not based merely on ideology, but on hard evidence.

Put simply, this age-based discrimination cannot be justified without hard evidence, and yet hard evidence seems to be a resource in very short supply in this matter. Pittwater is an outlying area of Sydney characterised by difficult topography and limited public transport. How can people age with dignity and independence in their own homes when they face the very real risk, every year, of having their driving licences snatched away? These proposed changes are not acceptable to the older drivers in my electorate, who simply cannot understand why they are being treated so unfairly when their only crime is to have celebrated too many birthdays.