Safer Journeys

New Zealand's road safety strategy to 2020

Safer Journeys is a strategy to guide improvements in road safety over the period 2010–2020. The long term goal for road safety in New Zealand is set out in its vision:

"A safe road system increasingly free of death and serious injury"

 

Safer Journeys: Alcohol Package

July 2010

Cabinet has approved a number of actions for reducing the impact of alcohol on our roads as part of the first steps in implementing Safer Journeys.

Actions in the package are:

  • Lower the legal youth drink drive limit from 0.03 blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to zero (as part of this action we will also introduce infringement penalties for youth drink driving with a BAC between 0 and 0.03).
  • Enable the introduction of alcohol interlocks for repeat drink drive offenders and offenders with very high BAC.
  • Enable the introduction of a zero drink drive limit for repeat drink drive offenders.  
  • Conduct further research on the level of risk posed by drivers with a BAC between 0.05 and 0.08.

Cabinet has also agreed to the following actions for improving penalties:

  • Strengthen the penalties for causing death.
  • Extension of the 28 day licence suspension.

Read Transport Minister Steven Joyce's announcement on drink driving actions

Read Transport Minister Steven Joyce's announcement on tougher penalties

Read questions and answers on the Safer Journeys: Alcohol Package
 

Safer Journeys: Young Driver Package

April 2010

Cabinet has approved a number of actions for improving the safety of young drivers as part of a first step in implementing Safer Journeys.

Actions in the package are:

  • Raise the driving age to 16.
  • Make the restricted licence test more difficult to encourage 120 hours of supervised driving practice.
  • Raise public awareness of young driver crash risk.
  • Improve the road safety education available to young people and increase access to it.
  • Investigate vehicle power restrictions for young drivers.
  • Allow approved courses (Defensive Driving and Street Talk) to be undertaken in the learner licence phase.
  • Investigate whether tougher penalties should be introduced for breaches of restricted licences.

Read Transport Minister Steven Joyce’s announcement on the young driver package

Read questions and answers on the Safer Journeys: young drivers package

Read the factsheet on young driver safety (PDF v7.0, 49.6kb)

Read the factsheet on raising the driving age (PDF v7.0, 47.1kb)