Supervisor: How to reduce your learner's risk of crashing

How to reduce your learner’s risk of crashing

Learn how you can help your learner on their Ls now to reduce their risk of crashing on their Ps.

In this topic

How to build your learner’s safe driving skills

Building safe driving behaviours

Reduce their risk: the four most common crashes

How to choose a safe car

How to build your learner’s safe driving skills

With you as their supervising driver, your learner is relatively safe.

This makes it a great time for them to gain experience in a wide range of situations and environments.

Your learner will gradually develop their safe driving behaviors in low-risk through to more challenging situations over time.

Building safe driving behaviours

To build safe driving behaviours, your learner can:

Use the driving stages to plan their drives to match their experience.
Go on lots of drives in many conditions, starting with simple driving activities through to more challenging situations.
Get lots of experience to develop key safe driving behaviours, such as keeping safe following distances and choosing safe gaps.
Gain a minimum 120 hours of driving experience of which at least 20 hours are at night.
Improve their hazard perception skills with on-road practice in real traffic.
Encourage them to practice using our online hazard perception practice test
Talk with you about how they're doing.

Evaluation of the Graduated Licensing System in 2017 showed there had been 42.5% fewer drivers aged 18 to 23 years involved in fatal or serious injury crashes.

The four most common crash types

A rear end collision
Reduce your learner's risk of crashing into the back of a vehicle and get them to:
- Maintain a three-second following distance.
- Slow down.
- Look well ahead for changes in the traffic.
- Drive at a speed suitable for the traffic they're in.
Turning right at an intersection
Reduce your learner's risk of crashing as you’re turning right at an intersection and get them to:
- Slow down well before they enter an intersection.
- Choose a safe gap.
- Know the give way rules.
A vehicle turning right
Reduce your learner's risk of crashing into a vehicle turning right and get them to:
- Slow down.
- Prepare to stop for vehicles that fail to give way.
- Check for things that may stop the other driver from seeing your learner.
A single vehicle crash
Reduce your learner's risk of a single-vehicle crash, such as running off the road and get them to:
- Drive at a speed suitable for the conditions.
- Slow down before bends or if it’s hard to see.
- Focus on their driving.