Police say they will enforce new legislation aimed at young drinking drivers.
From Sunday it will be against the law for drivers under the age of 20 to consume alcohol before driving.
The national manager for road policing said officers won’t specifically target young drivers but will be stopping and breath testing them.
“We are confident that these new measures will make a difference and help in making young people and in fact, all drivers safer,” said Superintendent Paula Rose.
“We do not want one bad day or a single poor decision to cost anybody their life.”
Transport Minister Steven Joyce says the current blood alcohol limit of 30mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood for drivers under 20 will reduce to zero from Sunday.
Joyce said the move is the second of three measures being introduced to enhance the safety of our young drivers, following an increase in the minimum driving age from 15 to 16 which came into force on August 1.
Next February the restricted licence test will be strengthened to encourage young and novice drivers to spend more time practising their skills under supervision before they are able to drive solo.
Young people (15-19 years) make up 7.4% of New Zealand’s population and 6.1% of all licensed drivers, but in 2010 they were involved in around 17% of all serious injury crashes.Crashes where young drivers were at fault resulted in 60 deaths and 385 serious injuries last year alone.
“Even more concerning is that 48% of those fatalities and 33% of those seriously injured in crashes where teen drivers were at fault involve alcohol as a factor,” said Joyce.
“The message to teen drivers is simple: if you plan on drinking, don’t plan on driving.”
Plea to “fuelled up” teens
The family of a decorated soldier killed in a triple-fatal road crash has made an impassioned plea to teen drivers to wake up to the perils of driving “fuelled up” and in breach of their restricted licences.
Father-of-three Mark Sydney was killed when his car was struck by another vehicle carrying four teenagers south of Waihi on January 21 this year.
Sydney, 44, was driving home from work at Spring Hill Prison when a car, believed to be driven by 17-year-old Dylan Perkinson, ploughed into him.
Perkinson, who held a restricted licence, and his front-seat passenger, Vance Williams, 16, died in the crash, while passengers Brennan Mayor, 17, and Kane Stewart, 16, were critically injured. Sydney’s younger brother, Ernie Sydney, speaking at yesterday’s inquest into the smash, challenged the two surviving teens to visit schools and educate their peers about the dangers of breaching restricted licences.
“It might scare you young people about what happens when you’re fuelled up on a restricted licence,” he told the families and friends of Sydney and all four teenagers at the Waihi District Court for the inquest.
An autopsy revealed Perkinson had a blood-alcohol reading of 57 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood.
Ernie Sydney said his brother served in danger zones overseas but returned to New Zealand to be with his family. He spent more than 20 years in the New Zealand Army and in 2007 was awarded a New Zealand Order of Merit for his work in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
“If my brother was here he’d be ripping strips off you guys … if he was in my spot,” Ernie Sydney told the teens.
“The two other boys, they wouldn’t want to be up top [in heaven] with my brother, he’d be drilling them.”
The plea for young drivers to learn from the horror smash comes as Perkinson’s family launch a private investigation to clear his name.
Sydney said his brother’s death had shaken his family and he was saddened the families of the teens had not contacted them. He believed Perkinson was driving at speed before the crash.
Police were unable to determine the speed of either vehicle.
Kane Stewart, who has no memory of the crash, told the inquest he remembered Vance Williams driving the teens back from Whangamata to Waihi Beach in Perkinson’s Subaru Impreza.
Stewart and Perkinson shared a box of beer that night and Williams offered to be the group’s sober driver.
He could not think why Perkinson might have got behind the wheel “unless Vance was tired”.
Mayor suffered serious head injuries in the smash and had no memory of the night.
Outside the court, both teens approached Sydney’s family.
Sydney’s wife Andrea said Stewart had apologised to her eldest son Bryce – a former school friend.
Waikato serious crash unit investigator senior constable Mark Chivers said evidence they had pointed to Perkinson being the car’s driver.
Perkinson’s family dispute this and plan to hire a private investigator to study the crash.
Coroner Peter Ryan said an adjournment was required to allow the family to complete their investigation but echoed Sydney’s sentiments the crash was an avoidable tragedy.
“It was a motor vehicle crash as opposed to a motor vehicle accident,” Ryan said.
The fatal crash would not have happened if the teens had followed restricted licence rules, he said.
