G’day again, Autopians! My last article had such a good reaction here that DT asked me to write some more for you. Heartfelt thanks from me for all the great responses from the Autopian community. In this article, I’ll briefly explain how driving licensing works in Australia, and how laws banning “high-performance” cars from being operated by teenagers/newly licensed people changed the face of motoring enthusiasm in Australia.
This subject was lightly touched on in the video where we celebrated Project Cactus passing a New South Wales Blue Slip (Unregistered Vehicle Inspection) and then going for a walk in downtown Dubbo to look at and discuss the cars we could find.
Pictured: the author.
All states and territories in Australia have a graduated licensing system. It differs slightly for each area, so I will stick to my native state of New South Wales (18 percent larger than Texas!) and give a brief overview of how the license system works before diving into the impacts.
Here in New South Wales, you can start driving from age 16 if you pass the computer-based Driver Knowledge Test and are accompanied by a fully-licensed driver when driving with a yellow “L” plate displayed on the front and rear of the vehicle.
As long as you are accompanied by a fully-licensed adult, you can drive any passenger vehicle that is roadworthy and registered in Australia.
You need to complete 120 logged driving hours (less if you have professionally-instructed lessons) and hold the license for 10 months before you can take an on-road driving test and graduate to your P1 License, or “Red P’s.”
Photo: Laurence Rogers
Now you can finally drive unaccompanied, with instant three-month disqualification for any speeding offenses and 90km/h maximum speed limit (even on 110km/h freeways!) You also cannot transport more than one person under the age of 21 between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. unless you have an exemption.
Additionally, you cannot drive any vehicle on the “prohibited” list (we will get back to this in a moment) or your license is disqualified for three months. Once you have had your Reds for 12 months (the counter resets if you have a disqualification), you can do another computer-based test and move up to your P2, or “Green P’s.”
Here you can now drive at up to 100km/h, carry more passengers under 21 (unless you had a disqualification on your Reds) and now you might get away with one minor speeding offense without being disqualified.
Photo: via NSW
If you manage to hold this last provisional license for 24 months without a disqualification you will finally have a chance to complete one final computer-based test and receive your full NSW driver’s license and the freedom to finally drive any passenger vehicle that is registered and roadworthy within Australia.
If you obtained your Learner license on your sixteenth birthday as many kids do, if you make it unscathed through this license plus P1 & P2, you’ll likely be twenty or so by the time you get your full license issued.
So what then are you allowed to drive as a teenager in New South Wales?
Teenagers Banned From Driving Cars With V8s Or Turbos
Prior to 2005, anything your heart desired that was roadworthy and registered in New South Wales or elsewhere in Australia.
The Prohibited Vehicles List for P1 and P2 drivers came into effect in NSW in 2005, with some other jurisdictions following suit in a similar fashion soon afterward such as Victoria and Queensland.
These vehicle restrictions came into being as a response to high-profile news articles relating to young drivers either being caught speeding at obscene velocities (a local highway near Dubbo had police catching at least one teenager a week, it seems, doing greater than 165km/h on a 110km/h section at the time), combined with the unfortunately also-common headline of cars loaded at or over capacity with teens having a crash and sending the children of five or more local families to the hospital or funeral home.
The rate of injury and death was still trending downwards, but that didn’t matter in the face of special-interest groups and victims’ families.
In response, Red and Green P-platers were banned from driving a list of vehicles that were on a published list and classified as ‘high-performance’. The main criteria at this time were:
- No V8s (unless diesel)
- No Turbos (unless diesel)
- No performance engine modifications
There were also some naturally-aspirated non-V8 vehicles that were on this first ban list, such as the Honda S2000 and Nissan 350Z.
Notable omissions included the VW Golf R32, Mazda RX-8 (and any non-turbo rotary), Nissan V35 Skylines (which you know as the Infiniti G35/G37) and even more vintage vehicles built for speed but without eight cylinders or forced induction such as the Ford Escort RS2000, Torana GTR XU-1 and Valiant Charger R/T Hemi-Sixpack range of vehicles.
This first wave of restrictions had no allowance for power-to-weight, and so created the bizarre situation where things like an emissions-choked 1980 WB Holden Statesman Deville with a 5.0L “Blue” Holden V8 with 126kw trying to move over 1680kg of malaise-luxury was banned, yet a VN Commodore with the same exact power figure from a 3.8-liter Buick V6 and 370-fewer kilograms to accelerate was perfectly P-plate legal!
Likewise, small-displacement turbocharged engines from the likes of VAG were banned even if they didn’t make more power than the larger N/A engines they were replacing for fuel economy.
How These Restrictions Changed Car Culture In Australia
The impact this legislation had on my cohort and those of my one-year-older brother was immediate and I argue created a shift in not just the second-hand car market but the overall car market in Australia and the enthusiast landscape.
In my high school class (I graduated in 2007), most of the kids were interested in performance cars of one kind or another, especially the V8 Holdens and Fords as that’s what we saw racing around Mount Panorama every October and compared endlessly in magazines. I was more into WRXs as a result of Gran Turismo, our family being friends with the local Subaru dealer, seeing Possum Bourne and Colin McRae drive like gods on TV plus an older cousin being impossibly cool by having had a GC8 WRX and an ST205 Toyota Celica GT-Four and taking us for rides.
Prior to the law changes, as you can likely imagine it was a rite of passage for any young enthusiast to buy either a V8 or a turbocharged car as soon as possible to be king of the school car park. Vehicles like the Commodore SS or Falcon XR8 were frequently sought out in the newspaper classifieds or if you were exceedingly lucky you had one handed down through the family line after having been dad’s car, then your older brother’s, and then finally yours as depreciation hit these vehicles almost as hard as the V6 variants.
It was pretty common back then for said V8-obsessed lads to then stick with this vehicle for a few years before buying a new V8 sedan or ute of their own once they had a decent income rolling in and then also buying a cheap and sparsely-appointed Japanese ute for work if they were a tradesman after finishing their four-year apprenticeship and spending those four years uncomfortably jammed in the passenger seat of their boss’s Japanese ute.
With this V8 pathway no longer being an option, and a large percentage of the boys in our classes leaving high school straight for a trade of some kind, many went straight to the Japanese ute instead. This was also at a time when these utes were starting to become more sophisticated, with electric windows and air-conditioning starting to be standard features!
As a result, the V8 or turbocharged beast no longer was the king of the heap at school, and instead many boys either went directly to the Japanese utes and never looked back or just bought a six-cylinder Ford/Holden and then bought a new or near-new Hilux/Navara/BT-50/Triton once they had a liveable wage.
The performance cars lost their broad appeal, and with the rising tide of 4×4 modifications plus these diesel utes becoming more refined and acceptable for ‘date night’ many of my peers forgot about performance cars altogether in terms of being vehicles to aspire towards owning.
Photo: The author
For me, it pushed me toward the 1986-1988 Holden VL Commodore. Lightweight and powered by a 3.0-liter inline-six, it offered good handling and a decent power-to-weight (115kw to ~1300kg) ratio that made it one of the quicker vehicles in my school car park at the time. With a killer audio install, it was perfect for blasting out some Pendulum or Addicted to Bass by Puretone, always a popular one with the kids addicted to subwoofers.
Being enamored with ‘70s vehicles from a young age (The Blues Brothers, Smokey and the Bandit and Mad Max 1 & 2 saw high rotation), the situation also pushed me towards Valiants with their brawny Hemi sixes.
In many ways, these vehicle restrictions for young people became a 21st-century version of the “Supercar Scare” of 1972. Unlike in the US, where your big-block muscle was put out to pasture around the same time due to upcoming emissions laws, Australia didn’t yet have these same restrictions threatening to kill off our ‘Supercars’ that were essentially homologation-specials for racing in the Australian Touring Car Championship, with a strong focus on the Bathurst 500-mile (later 1000-km) enduro.
On 25th June 1972, the headline of Evan Green’s article exploded onto the front page of the Sun-Herald: ‘160MPH “Super Cars” Soon. Minister Horrified.”
Here is an excerpt, emphasis mine:
“Australia’s three major car makers are about to produce ‘super cars” with top speeds up to 160 miles an hour.
But NSW transport minister Milton Morris said yesterday that he was appalled at “bullets on wheels” being sold to ordinary motorists.
The automotive “big three” General Motors Holden, Ford and Chrysler are building the cars for a head-on confrontation in Australia’s most important motor race, the Hardie Ferodo 500, at Bathurst on October 1.
The cars will be available to the general public for use on the open road…..
….Under the rules of the Hardie Ferodo 500, at least 200 basically identical units must be sold in Australia before a locally-made car can qualify for the race.
Therein lies the problem.
“I don’t mind expert racing drivers handling such machines on enclosed racing circuits,” Mr Morris told me.”But the thought that ordinary motorist of varying degrees of skill will be able to purchase these bullets on wheels and drive them on public roads is alarming.”
“I am horrified at the prospect of young and inexperienced drivers getting behind the wheel of such machines”.
“This is specially the case when the cars reach the second-hand market And their braking and suspension systems have deteriorated.”
This article generated a controversy that lasted a whole week and as a result of this media frenzy the Big Three (Holden, Ford and Chrysler) backed out of plans for higher-performance vehicles for the 1973 racing season under State and Federal Government pressure, using lucrative government fleet sales as leverage. These government fleet sales were a big chunk of overall sales for all three makers, so losing this contract could bankrupt any of them.
There were some high-performance models still released by the Big Three, but much more quietly and generally without as much lurid advertising, or even any advertising at all. The homologation rules were also changed in response.
So did these rules actually fix anything? That’s hard to say. I’ve tried looking around for answers, and seems to be a lot like how violent crime has been dropping since the ‘90s—it’s hard to determine if the gradual decrease in car fatalities is from these rules, safer cars, other factors or all of the above.
What I do know is there is no indication that this knee-jerk response altered Australia’s then quite-high road toll. Later developments such as mandatory seatbelt use, radial tires, alcohol breathalyzers and road improvements arguably did more to reduce fatalities than banning the maybe 600-odd homologation specials the Big Three put out each year at high prices.
Rather ironically, the 2005 P-plate laws seeking to remove these “bullets-on-wheels” from young blokes had the effect of those kids still addicted to performance cars instead either secretly hopping up our legal cars or building a car/drivetrain that would make absolutely bonkers power, ready to be driven/dropped in as soon as we got our full licenses. Instead of getting a stock V8 or turbo car and learning to master it, hitting age 20 and going straight to something with nearly double that stock power isn’t unusual among the car-crazed.
Teens Used To Build Engines While They Waited To Age Out Of The Restrictions
Back in the days of the online forums, it wasn’t uncommon to see a teenager owning a Silvia, Supra or Skyline and either removing the turbocharged engine for a non-turbo equivalent or buying the naturally-aspirated version and then building up a turbo engine while marking the days until they could legally drop it in and suddenly have multiple times the power of their non-boosted mill!
Photo: The author
I had intended to build for my ‘74 VJ Valiant Charger which I bought at 18 a 265-cubic-inch Hemi Sixpack engine with three 45mm DCOE Weber carburetors whilst still on my P-plates as this was legal at the time even with it having 300hp (compared to the ~160hp 245 Hemi Six it had) moving 1350kg due to it being an optional engine and not on the banned list. I now have an engine like that installed after much trial and pain, it only took me twelve years to do so!
NSW updated its regulations in 2014 and moved towards a power-to-weight-based list of restricted vehicles, allowing teenagers to drive things like the prior-mentioned 1980 WB Holden Statesman Deville with its strangled Iron Lion and more modern, efficiency-oriented turbocharged vehicles such as VW Polo 1.0 TSI.
Current Restrictions: Power To Weight
The current restrictions in place limit kids to vehicles under 130kw/1000kg, so naturally-aspirated engines that didn’t get captured in the 2005 laws are now banned from P-platers such as some models of Toyota Aurion, most Tesla Model S variants (over 140 Tesla variants total), V35 Skylines and the aforementioned Holden Torana GTR XU. Not that many teenagers are driving $200,000 classics, but it also removes them using that engine package, curiously it doesn’t specifically ban the Hemi-Sixpack Valiant Chargers.
Strangely, the Maxda RX-8 early models (circa 2003) are banned, yet the later models are allowed. The same applies to the Toyota 86: the first-gen is legal but the new GR86 with the 2.4-liter engine is banned.
Photo: Matt Hardigree
If you want to peruse the current New South Wales list and see if you can find some anomalies, check it out here.
There doesn’t appear to be any talk of changing these restrictions, even as we enter a more electrified era. If the NSW Government determines that an electric vehicle has a power-to-weight ratio equivalent of over 130kw/tonne then it’s banned from teenage use, or if there’s something else they don’t like about, it they will ban it anyway. As EVs come out that can accommodate family use and deliver incredible 0-60 times, it wouldn’t be surprising if there was a push to add restrictive modes to these cars should there be another media controversy.
If there’s something about Australian cars or car culture you’d like to know more about, let me know. In the meantime, enjoy this Australian classic.
I got my licence in 1986 in Western Australia (where we can fit Texas 3 times over and still have room for the entire UK and Japan with room to spare…)
After 10 hours of lessons (I did one per day) which we were encouraged to do so in a manual car, I got my P’s for 12 months and could drive any type of passenger car I cared to from day 1. Since I was skint (poor) I got to borrow mum’s 10 year old Datsun 180b.
No supervised driving, no log book hours, no restrictions on passengers, no engine size limits… The good old days.
I’m lucky enough to have got my car and motorbike licences in Victoria in the early 90s, just before most of the more complex and restrictive rules about licensing came in. I got my licence in an automatic, as that’s all my parents had at the time but just missed the later restriction that meant I would have been limited to auto cars until I did another test in a manual. In the end I learned to drive a manual car when I converted my first car from auto to manual and had to teach myself to drive a manual by trial and error.
Truck licensing has also changed here over that time – it used to be possible to go straight out after getting a full car licence and doing the training/testing to drive a semi-trailer. Now you have to have a car licence for at least a year, start with a Light Rigid (2 axle 4.5 to 8 tonnes), Medium Rigid (2 axle 8+ tonnes) or Heavy Rigid (3+ axle 8+ tonnes) licence, get another 12+ months experience before you can then get a Heavy Combination or Multi Combination licence (prime mover with 1 or 2 trailers).
This is great Laurence. I hope we can look forward to more articles from you, I really enjoy learning about Australian car culture!
Here in Victoria I vaguely remember that the “no turbos, no V8s” rule came in because it was deemed too complicated for police to work out which models would be above a certain power-to-weight ratio and which wouldn’t be. I can kind of understand that argument but obviously advances in tech made the rule redundant quite rapidly. It’s probably easier these days just using a ban-list as the cop can search the make/model/spec on their in-car computer (or their phone).
I never understood the 90km/h restriction for P-platers in NSW (thankfully we didn’t have that one in Vic) – it just led to more unnecessary (and sometimes dangerous) overtaking on 2-lane roads.
Really enjoy seeing articles from Lawrence. Had a friend in Sydney area who bought a new Commodore SS V (2013 or 14) and when visiting and getting to ride in it, was quite surprised how nice it was. No driving, I don’t drive on the wrong side of the road on purpose. Excellent power with nice amenities. Not being much of a Chevy fan, all I could think is, this is what GM should be doing in the US. Shame Holden is done. But it spurred my interest in car culture down under.
Over the years I’ve sat in on conversations with Aussies, Kiwis and Brits discussing the various licensing situations throughout the UK, and never could really understand it, that is until now, at least for AU. Thanks Lawrence!
The US really doe need to standard and tighten licensing rules. Here’s my example. Where I grew up, I took driver’s ed in school and was able to get my learners permit at 15, full license at 16. At 25, I took a somewhat hard written test and relatively easy driving test for a full commercial license. The driving test was done in the equivalent of a heavy bread truck, but gave me the ability to drive a semi.
Moved several states over the years, and never had to take anything more than a written test to continue to hold the commercial license, even though I hadn’t driven a commercial vehicle in years and years. Dropped the commercial myself at one move because I didn’t want my employer to try to take advantage of it. But to think I had barely ever been tested, could move anywhere, and after decades, climb into a big rig and just drive massive weight around at high speeds is jut insane to me.
Now I am an old, do you think I have to take a periodic test just to make sure I still have the skill? Heck, that applies to anyone at any age. We see enough bad drivers here to know remedial education is needed.
Thanks for jogging my memory on all this! I grew up in Brisbane (shove it NSW!) and I missed the 120 hour logged hour requirement, it was implemented not long after I got my license.
Having learned in Australia, taking a test in a manual car to have a manual license and using the older ‘P’ plate system felt like I was properly taught to drive. When I moved to Texas I had to take drivers education and another test because I wasn’t old enough to have them just hand me a Texas license despite the fact I had been driving for years.. that sounds logical until you’re told it’s only one 8-hour classroom day that teaches you nothing and then a driving test where I spent the entire time discussing Australia with my tester. I stalled it on the parallel park portion in my then-new Bullitt, I figured instant fail, nope, totally unbothered. They even told me you can touch the posts representing other cars, just don’t run them over. The testing for drivers in the US is honestly a bit of a joke.
It’s kind of hilarious and sad at the same time, how poor of a job governments in general have done at regulating what is a “performance car” throughout the years. The power-to-weight ratio thing isn’t too terrible, but that first attempt… oof. You’d think they could’ve gotten some advice from literally anyone who knows one damn thing about cars. It’s the kind of embarrassingly-clueless regulation that breeds contempt for government in general, and reflexive opposition to any regulations of any kind, ever. We need regulations in a society as large and complex as ours, but incompetent ones are often worse than none at all.
“Teenagers Banned From Driving Cars With V8s Or Turbos”
Are there any plans to review the “no turbos” rule?
Because – in Europe at least – an increasing number of small family cars have tiny-capacity turbocharged engines. Not for huge power, but for economy and emissions.
Ford and VAG each have 1.0 litre turbos in cars like the Focus and Golf. I don’t know if these types of engines/cars are available in Australia, but would these be restricted in the same way that powerful cars are?
As per the article, the rules changed in 2014 to restrict cars over 130kw/tonne instead. That means your old 70s V8s that barely make 200hp are now unrestricted, as are vehicles like the 1.0L European turbocharged economy cars.
Thanks. I confess to not having read the full article, I just wanted to post my question while it was fresh in my mind.
Oops!
I wish we had a system like this here in the US. I live in California, and while they have added restrictive rules for teen drivers, it’s nothing like what you describe. News stories about kids dying in car crashes is sadly a real thing in my area, usually with multiple kids in said car.
Lawrence i havent yet thanked you for your part in Project Cactus. It’s David’s best yet, by a large large measure,and it’s obvious a lot of it was down to you 🙂
I look forward to more articles from you,and God willing, the rumored aussie ute road trip.
My thoughts on our license system?Except for one aspect it’s solid.Really well thought out.
The one thing we lack is proper driver skills training!
Not only would that increase safety, it would allow us to have sensible speed limits again. I despair at the situation were in now.So many idiots driving 15 or 20 under the limit because they’re scared of their own car. Utter.f*cking.Morons
*edit
15-20 under the *already too slow* limit
Hi Ron, thanks for the kind words!
I agree on the driver training, I drive over 50,000km a year for work and see so many people afraid to go over 90km/h on a 110km/h road, yet they seem to speed up at overtaking zones?!?
Haha,yep, they always speed up in the overtaking zones.
That’s a universal constant. Worse- the perps always think they’re doing the right thing! I was floored when i learned this.Their thought process is something like two lanes=much safer, thus now they can do the limit.
That’s interesting. Where I do most of my driving (Massachusetts, in the northeastern US) we tend to have a lot of people doing 20 km/h over the limit on the same types of roads, because they aren’t scared enough. It’s normal for the entire left lane of a highway (the fast lane, as we drive on the right) to be doing about 130 km/h on a 105 km/h road, with just two or three car lengths between cars—and if you try to give yourself a reasonable following distance, people will take that as an invitation to cut in. Today’s cars make this kind of thing so effortless, and are so quiet and smooth at speed, that people feel perfectly comfortable in situations where they wouldn’t have a hope in hell of reacting in time should something unexpected occur.
It is the same down in the southeast. We have a major speeding problem down here combined with some people that think it is there duty to slow those speeders down so they will drive less than the speed limit in the fast lane so that people can’t speed.
It’s good to see you again on here, Laurence.
As a 16 year old in 1974, I wonder how this would have affected my working in construction. We had F350’s with 460 V8’s.
Is there an allowance for employment? Agribusiness or construction?
P.S.: You’ve written that you have a day job. I hope that you can post once in a while about Aussie car culture. I find it to be quite intriguing.
Thanks, glad to be sharing some more Aussie car culture!
The 2014 rules with power-to-weight would likely allow it, the link in the article lists F150-250-350s up to 2006 and all are allowed. Didn’t see any 460ci petrol listed but I don’t imagine they’d be an issue with 1975 engines being 250hp and 6000lb. Converting to metric, it makes 186kw and 2721kg for a kw/tonne figure of 68kw/tonne, so about half the limit of 130kw/tonne. It would need to be 475hp to break the limit.
Not sure how it did/does work in NSW, but when I got my licence in Victoria 20 odd years ago If you tested in an automatic car then you got a condition “A” printed on your licence and you weren’t legally allowed to drive a manual trans car. Ever.
In NSW, if you do the driving test in an auto you can only drive auto on your Red ‘P’s’, once you graduate to Green/P2 you can drive manual.
Heard similar in the UK regarding auto licences following you to full licence, anyone know if that is the case?
Myself and everyone I knew got manual licences anyway, so no idea if the condition thing still applies past your P’s these days. My first car was up your alley, a 245 powered VG Regal 770 with a floor shift BW35, so wasn’t an issue anyway
Interesting! Nothing like that here in the States. The state I live in has a junior license that 17 year olds can get. It automatically turns into a full license at the 18th birthday. The road test is also fairly basic and full of stylized driving performance art.
As an anecdote of how lax the driving test can be: the young women in my small town growing up knew to wear a push-up bra and low-cut or fitted shirt to their driving test. One of the examiners was a creep and overlooked some driving flaws while staring at their chests. This had gone on for years but the guy knew how to keep things plausibly deniable. And he did fail the really bad drivers, so at least did that part of the job.
Back when I did my driving test they were extra hard on male test applicants, most guys I know failed at least once, including me! Absolutely nailed it the second try, one mark off perfect score!
My driving “test”, which was (oof) 22 years ago now, involved me driving a few hundred feet in a straight line down the DMV parking lot’s access road, doing a 3-point turn when I got to the end where it let out onto the public street, and then driving back to the parking lot again. I took the pass of course, but even at 16 I was kinda blown away at how pathetic that test was. I dunno, the cop must have wanted his lunch break or something.
Mine was a little harder than that, but not much. I had to go onto the public road. Drive a very short distance and turn into a forest preserve. Do the 3-point turn there, and then go back.
My second drivers license test (I pretended it was my first, for reasons) was to back the car out onto a public street, make four right turns around the block and pull into the same spot I’d previously backed out of.
This was around 1990 when I first moved to Baton Rouge, LA. I was told by my new co-workers to just drive over the river and go to that MVA, DMV whatever it’s called there for an easier time at it. They were correct.
Great article. Enjoyed your last piece as well. Hoping to see more from you, especially about the Aussie car culture and its interesting history. We were introduced to some interesting characters helping David Tracy build that Ute at your moms place. Like to see an article about some of those people that are part of the Aussie car community.
Thank you! I am hoping to do a profile on the bloke we bought Cactus from some day, really interesting fellow and has a really eclectic collection of cars.
Good good stuff. Would be interesting to see a list of vehicles currently sold in the US that would be restricted using the same criteria.
Interesting article-and great to see Laurence’s byline again. I rather like the P-plate idea, and I can understand the PVList: that’s just politicians playing to the electorate. When I clicked the link, though, it seemed like many of the fatal accidents listed were in stolen vehicles, so I’m not sure how keeping P peeps from legally owning certain cars helped much. I know I would have hated the very idea if I’d been getting my permit under that law (even though I certainly couldn’t have afforded anything even mildly hot: I remember looking at an Opel Cadet).
Oh, and thanks for the ‘I’m just waiting for a mate’ link: that definitely is a classic!
Thanks! I agree with some of the restrictions, like automatic disqualification if you’re caught speeding, the zero-alcohol tolerance and the passenger restrictions when you’re 17 make sense.
I know from my experiences that the vehicle restrictions didn’t stop hooning at all. I remember hearing of a fellow apprentice-spraypainter getting caught doing over 210km/h in a Hyundai Elantra!
I had a roommate in college who got caught doing nearly 100mph in a Kia Sephia … TWICE!
Thank you! The power-to-weight rules make more logical sense than banning every V8 or turbo engine ever, how much effect it has had I can’t determine.
As much as I lusted for a ’99 WRX, at that age it was completely unaffordable to buy or insure anyway. I remember insurance for my cousin’s WRX was something like $4,500/year and he was 22 at the time!
Great to see you on here as a contributor Laurence. Hope to read more from you.
Things have certainly become a lot more restrictive since I started driving in the early 2000’s. The only restrictions on your P plates here in SA at the time were: zero blood alcohol concentration, limited to 100km/hr on 110km/hr roads and only allowed to accrue 4 demerit points. You could drive whatever your heart desired and carry as many fellow juvenile delinquents as you wanted – I certainly did lots of irresponsible things in my Dad’s VN Commodore wagon. The rules at that time meant I was automatically on my full, unrestricted licence the day I turned 19, no test involved. My wife, a Victorian native, wasn’t allowed her full licence until 21.
I just looked up the rules for restricted vehicles for P platers in SA as I didn’t know if we had any. They are confusing – they only apply for cars built after 2010. If it’s older than that, it looks like you could hypothetically drive a Ferrari on your P’s!
Thank you, hopefully next time DT comes down (or the one after that!) we will make it over to SA so he can see the former heart of Aussie car manufacturing.
I was always jealous of a mate of mine who moved over just after high school from WA, they had no such restrictions so he was able to drive an XR8 Falcon!
The idea is good, but of course the original implementation was stupid, because politicians worldwide have for years been making laws about things for which they have no practical knowledge.
And I’m sure I’ll upset lots of Autopians with this, but I believe there’s some power-to-weight ratio beyond which *no one* should be able to license or street drive a vehicle. Yes, it’s *possible* to operate a Hellcat Challenger in a safe and sane manner. It’s also way too easy NOT to.
I definitely think you could be required to get a special license to drive a hellcat or 800hp Tesla, through some much more thorough driver training program, but I don’t think trying to outright ban such cars would ever work.
I agree, anything in the 1.9 Gw/kg range or above has just too much energy that your car would just melt oh and everything around you too.
If I’m not mistaken, Australia also has a power-based graduated motorcycle license system too, right?
By way of comparison, here in the States, you can spend two days in a parking lot putting around in first gear, pass the tests, get your license, and immediately & legally go pick up a supersport with a power-to-weight ratio of a six figure supercar.
There’s something simultaneously wonderfully and horribly American about that.
Yeah, we have a category of bikes that are known as LAMS (Learner Approved Motorcycles) which for the most part are bikes under 250cc.
On one of the forums I frequent we see from time to time people from Australia who have, what are pretty much JDM, Honda Shadow 400 bikes that meet (or met) the requirements. They are effectively a de-bored and de-stroked 750 in most ways and just as heavy.
Do you likewise have a visible plate symbol for those bikes as well?
Yes, same plastic squares to display. At least on motorcycle L’s you ride alone!
When I first went to Australia years ago, I was in a store in Canberra – walking past the auto section b/c of course, I saw the L placards. I couldn’t for the life of my figure out what they were, and the packaging was of little help to an American…”L plate”
Great article Laurence – thank you!
Yup, similar list of bikes not allowed for riders intially.
And see impact on second hand market, as far as my cursory perusal goes.
Conversely, go to any motorcycle dealership here in the U.S. and you’ll see a gigantic used bike section (usually outnumbering the new bikes).
Most are 600cc and above, they look beautiful, low miles…and then you look closer and see the rash/scrapes on parts that couldn’t be replaced. “Been down only once!”
In Canada the cost of insurance keeps the mismatch of rider and bike under control.
It is not ideal and there are work arounds like riding your mom’s superbike, but it is something.
For that matter, non-Americans are sometimes horrified to learn that everyone – EVERYONE! – in America takes their driving test on an automatic, and teaching yourself to drive a manual with a YouTube video on the way home from the car dealer has become an enthusiast rite of passage. There haven’t been such things as auto-only licenses since at least the ’70s.
As an Australian, I never really got the point of having separate licenses.
If you take your driving test in an automatic, then learn to drive a manual later,
even if you’re perfectly capable of driving it, the police can fine you for “not being licensed to drive a manual”.
Which is why you get a manual licence first and then spend as many years as you care to driving an automatic…
That way if you ever do get caught out with a manual (eg rental car) you’re good to go!
In Finland automatic-only licenses are a quite recent thing, everyone I know took their driving test on a manual.
Oh, it’s worse than that. I spent 5 hours puttering around a parking lot on a 150cc scooter, got my motorcycle license on that, and then it was completely legal for me to run out and get a liter bike to kill myself on.
I bought a 150cc scooter instead though. Dyin’ ain’t much of a livin’.
In Victoria at least, the licensing system for motorbikes is now based on power-to-weight, with a specific list of L and P plate legal bikes, but used to be solely based on a limit of 250cc engine capacity. This skewed the values of secondhand 2 stroke road bikes, as many L platers would want something like a Suzuki RG250 (or the previous model RG250 I had as a first bike) to get maximum power output from the 250cc limit. But it also led to a trend to buy a Yamaha RD350 2 stroke then grind off the ‘350’ cast onto the barrels and pretend it was an RD250, as they were otherwise almost indistinguishable.
That would suck…in the early 90s I got my bike license and immediately bought a 900ninja… And soon after was attacking the GP tracks near me.
Great article. Looking forward to more. Being of the generation where I turned 16 in 1974, I have a different recollection of vehicles and young drivers.
First is insurance. For males under 25, a higher performance new car was tough to justify since insurance was very expensive if not unobtainable. It did not preclude you folk building their own / or older hot rod. But it really reduced the potential.
Second- by the time 1974 rolled around, performance car was by and large an oxymoron. Emissions and fuel mileage requirements made performance cars very rare (look up test results for. 1975 Trans Am for example). Todays everyday grocery getters are faster, and probably handle better.
Back when I was a young driver, sure there were people I know that got in accidents due to excessive speed. But I don’t think regs to limit vehicular power would have made much of a difference. And with todays cars, the potential is even less. Because performance is higher for all cars, and that todays cars are so much safer.
Maybe it’s my anti “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” philosophy. But I’m not sure successful the Aussie rules would have been in the US. Unfortunately you cannot regulate common sense. And drivers that want to do stupid things will do so no matter what.
Just my $0.02…
It’s worth pointing out that Victoria has a very similar licence progression system except (unless it has recently changed) that you can not get your P plates (therefore drive unaccompanied) until you are 18 years old.
We should probably also say that the accompanying licenced adult for an L plate driver is basically acting as a guarantor for that learner and is equally subject to all penalties acquired by that learner during any drive. And they most certainly must not drink or drug affected – so they too must submit to roadside drink and drug testing if stopped.
Of course it doesn’t matter that there is no proof that any of this social engineering made any difference. The masters in control of the subjects know better than the stupid residents. They make whatever rules they want when the media histrionics are loud enough. Same for other devices they don’t trust their subjects to own, or carry. They sure increased the numbers of youngsters who could wrench their way around the restrictions. Hey, how about requiring extensive, mandatory driver training to teach excellent car control? Nah, that would put the onus on the humans that cause the problem in the first place.
There’s evidence that it did in other Australian states. There’s definitely stats from Victoria that the numbers of deaths and injuries in incidents involving drivers under the age of 25 declined in the years after the rules were introduced.
The question is though, do those figures take into account the increased safety of the newer vehicles those people would have been driving?
I note that you didn’t say it reduced crashes, only that injuries and deaths went down.
Those figures are the raw numbers. I’m pretty sure that the primary contribution to the decline was the restrictions on passenger numbers for provisional drivers. Some pretty graphic advertising at the time didn’t hurt either…
Well presented! Pity things aren’t a little more stringent in the US.
I’ve been driving for 40 years and haven’t had a skills test since my initial license. When you move state to state, all you have to do is memorize some stuff and pass the written test.
But, I haven’t had a moving violation in 30 years and got my maniacal driver phase out of my system in my teens. The best advice I can offer (which is easy to these days) is stay off known high traffic roads and just keep moving and allow the time for the slower route.
I’m always surprised at how the skills test itself has changed over the years. When I did mine, you had to parallel park the car as part of it…I don’t think that’s required anywhere anymore.
It largely depends on where you are and on the person administering the test. I have two daughters. One is 19 and the other is 21. The older one didn’t have to parallel park on her final test, but the younger one did.
Great article and I’m surprised more jurisdictions haven’t tried something similar.
Selfishly I’m glad this didn’t completely strangle the V8 Holdens before a few of them could be sent stateside.
Thanks, Australia just seems to be one of places where we try out these kinds of things.
Hard to say how large the impact the restrictions were on sales of V8 Holdens & Fords, as not all states have these laws (mostly the eastern states) and the gradual decline in overall sales of large cars was already kicking in. I know from my experiences that the V8 buyers from then-on seemed to mainly be older blokes just replacing their prior V8 sedan after 3-5 years.
I have only one friend out of several dozen who are car-mad that bought a new V8 Commodore in his mid 20s. Just about everyone else, whilst they love a good V8 just went and bought a new Hilux/Navara/D-Max/Triton/BT-50/Ranger at the same age instead.
Actually this seems like a very logical approach to training people to drive one step at a time. You dont let a 7th grader play in the NFL why should young idiots have access to monster power before they know how to drive? Yes i was an idiot to but finances led me to gagas maverick. But also remember the line from Jurassic Park nature finds a way. So ban a teenager from owning and driving a real p###y wagon what do you get? Nature aka biology of building a monster yet camouflaged. Forfeiture of vehicle might have helped but really who wasnt dumb enough to do something stupid enough to catch the eye of a fair lady in the hopes of her doing something dumb enough?
Oh yes, we still tried to show off! Like performance cars in general though, I think my maaaadd stereo setup only really attracted blokes who like bass instead of the intended target haha!