"I think there is going to be rejoicing across the state this afternoon from parents and the young people"
said NSW Roads Minister Duncan Gay after his announcement of changes to the system for learner drivers in the state.
The biggest change for learner drivers and their families is that drivers will now be able to cut down the amount of supervised driving hours from 120 hours to 80 hours.
The amount of hours will be reduced by 40 hours if the drivers do 10 hours of professional lessons and also a safe driving course.
"We had a situation that whenever there was a problem on the roads, whenever there was an accident, we bumped the hours up, they went from 20 to 40 to 60 to 80 to 120.
What we are saying is that it probably didn't improve their ability to drive.
We put parents and young people in a situation where they were probably cheating and we weren't training them"
said Mr Gay.
Safe driving courses will be available from July 1 and will be subsidised.
"We are going to subside the course with money from speed cameras.
We will lower the hours provided they get proper training with driver trainers, and/or a safer driver course.
Here's a better way, less hours, better training.
The whole point of this is to have a better outcome for safety"
said Mr Gay.
Learner drivers will also be allowed to drive 10km per hour faster than they currently can, up to 90 km per hour.
Source: ABC Sydney