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I was absolutely delighted to read Stephen Corby’s column in the July 2018 edition, on Germany’s driving discipline.

I totally agree with Stephen – education is the key to improving the quality of new drivers on our road. Like Stephen’s young German companion Nikolas, I lay down the challenge to Stephen to be part of the solution.

I run free workshops for parents supervising learner drivers on behalf of State and Local Government. The workshops are designed to equip parents with practical skills and confidence to be effective supervisors championing safe and good driving.

The workshops cover mandatory requirements for learner drivers including 120 hours on-road supervised driving, 20 hours supervised night-time driving and licencing conditions for learners to enhance safety.

The workshops also stress the vital role supervisors perform in influencing learner drivers’ attitudes and behaviour to driving. We discuss the function parents have performed to date as driving role models for their back-seat passenger children.

At this point many parents confess poor driving habits and commit to improving their driving behaviour. It’s a beneficial consequence of our licencing system, enabling refresher education of existing drivers on road rules and safety.

The free workshop for supervisors is not mandatory, however participants rave about the confidence and skills they gain from setting aside two hours to enhance their knowledge on being a supervisor.

Any additional promotion or support for the free workshops is gold and I would love to invite Stephen Corby to attend one of my workshops to experience first-hand the training and support offered to supervisors of learner drivers.

As Stephen rightly noted in his article, producing good drivers is no accident.