The experiences of learner drivers, provisional drivers and supervisors with graduated driver licensing in two Australian jurisdictions

Newly licensed drivers on a provisional or intermediate licence have the highest crash risk when compared with any other group of drivers. In comparison, learner drivers have the lowest crash risk. Graduated driver licensing is one countermeasure that has been demonstrated to effectively reduce the crashes of novice drivers. This thesis examined the graduated driver licensing systems in two Australian states in order to better understand the behaviour of learner drivers, provisional drivers and the supervisors of learner drivers. By doing this, the thesis investigated the personal, social and environmental influences on novice driver behaviour as well as providing effective baseline data against which to measure subsequent changes to the licensing systems. In the first study, conducted prior to the changes to the graduated driver licensing system introduced in mid-2007, drivers who had recently obtained their provisional licence in Queensland and New South Wales were interviewed by telephone regarding their experiences while driving on their learner licence. Of the 687 eligible people approached to participate at driver licensing centres, 392 completed the study representing a response rate of 57.1 per cent. At the time the data was collected, New South Wales represented a more extensive graduated driver licensing system when compared with Queensland. The results suggested that requiring learners to complete a mandated number of hours of supervised practice impacts on the amount of hours that learners report completing. While most learners from New South Wales reported meeting the requirement to complete 50 hours of practice, it appears that many stopped practising soon after this goal was achieved. In contrast, learners from Queensland, who were not required to complete a specific number of hours at the time of the survey, tended to fall into three groups. The first group appeared to complete the minimum number of hours required to pass the test (less than 26 hours), the second group completed 26 to 50 hours of supervised practice while the third group completed significantly more practice than the first two groups (over 100 hours of supervised practice). Learner drivers in both states reported generally complying with the road laws and were unlikely to report that they had been caught breaking the road rules. They also indicated that they planned to obey the road laws once they obtained their provisional licence. However, they were less likely to intend to comply with recommended actions to reduce crash risk such as limiting their driving at night. This study also identified that there were relatively low levels of unaccompanied driving (approximately 15 per cent of the sample), very few driving offences committed (five per cent of the sample) and that learner drivers tended to use a mix of private and professional supervisors (although the majority of practice is undertaken with private supervisors). Consistent with the international literature, this study identified that very few learner drivers had experienced a crash (six per cent) while on their learner licence. The second study was also conducted prior to changes to the graduated driver licensing system and involved follow up interviews with the participants of the first study after they had approximately 21 months driving experience on their provisional licence. Of the 392 participants that completed the first study, 233 participants completed the second interview (representing a response rate of 59.4 per cent). As with the first study, at the time the data was collected, New South Wales had a more extensive graduated driver licensing system than Queensland. For instance, novice drivers from New South Wales were required to progress through two provisional licence phases (P1 and P2) while there was only one provisional licence phase in Queensland. Among the participants in this second study, almost all provisional drivers (97.9 per cent) owned or had access to a vehicle for regular driving. They reported that they were unlikely to break road rules, such as driving after a couple of drinks, but were also unlikely to comply with recommended actions, such as limiting their driving at night. When their provisional driving behaviour was compared to the stated intentions from the first study, the results suggested that their intentions were not a strong predictor of their subsequent behaviour. Their perception of risk associated with driving declined from when they first obtained their learner licence to when they had acquired provisional driving experience. Just over 25 per cent of participants in study two reported that they had been caught committing driving offences while on their provisional licence. Nearly one-third of participants had crashed while driving on a provisional licence, although few of these crashes resulted in injuries or hospitalisations. To complement the first two studies, the third study examined the experiences of supervisors of learner drivers, as well as their perceptions of their learner’s experiences. This study was undertaken after the introduction of the new graduated driver licensing systems in Queensland and New South Wales in mid- 2007, providing insights into the impacts of these changes from the perspective of supervisors. The third study involved an internet survey of 552 supervisors of learner drivers. Within the sample, approximately 50 per cent of participants supervised their own child. Other supervisors of the learner drivers included other parents or stepparents, professional driving instructors and siblings. For two-thirds of the sample, this was the first learner driver that they had supervised. Participants had provided an average of 54.82 hours (sd = 67.19) of supervision. Seventy-three per cent of participants indicated that their learners’ logbooks were accurate or very accurate in most cases, although parents were more likely than non-parents to report that their learners’ logbook was accurate (F (1,546) = 7.74, p = .006). There was no difference between parents and non-parents regarding whether they believed the log book system was effective (F (1,546) = .01, p = .913). The majority of the sample reported that their learner driver had had some professional driving lessons. Notwithstanding this, a significant proportion (72.5 per cent) believed that parents should be either very involved or involved in teaching their child to drive, with parents being more likely than non-parents to hold this belief. In the post mid-2007 graduated driver licensing system, Queensland learner drivers are able to record three hours of supervised practice in their log book for every hour that is completed with a professional driving instructor, up to a total of ten hours. Despite this, there was no difference identified between Queensland and New South Wales participants regarding the amount of time that they reported their learners spent with professional driving instructors (X2(1) = 2.56, p = .110). Supervisors from New South Wales were more likely to ensure that their learner driver complied with the road laws. Additionally, with the exception of drug driving laws, New South Wales supervisors believed it was more important to teach safety-related behaviours such as remaining within the speed limit, car control and hazard perception than those from Queensland. This may be indicative of more intensive road safety educational efforts in New South Wales or the longer time that graduated driver licensing has operated in that jurisdiction. However, other factors may have contributed to these findings and further research is required to explore the issue. In addition, supervisors reported that their learner driver was involved in very few crashes (3.4 per cent) and offences (2.7 per cent). This relatively low reported crash rate is similar to that identified in the first study. Most of the graduated driver licensing research to date has been applied in nature and lacked a strong theoretical foundation. These studies used Akers’ social learning theory to explore the self-reported behaviour of novice drivers and their supervisors. This theory was selected as it has previously been found to provide a relatively comprehensive framework for explaining a range of driver behaviours including novice driver behaviour. Sensation seeking was also used in the first two studies to complement the non-social rewards component of Akers’ social learning theory. This program of research identified that both Akers’ social learning theory and sensation seeking were useful in predicting the behaviour of learner and provisional drivers over and above socio-demographic factors. Within the first study, Akers’ social learning theory accounted for an additional 22 per cent of the variance in learner driver compliance with the law, over and above a range of socio-demographic factors such as age, gender and income. The two constructs within Akers’ theory which were significant predictors of learner driver compliance were the behavioural dimension of differential association relating to friends, and anticipated rewards. Sensation seeking predicted an additional six per cent of the variance in learner driver compliance with the law. When considering a learner driver’s intention to comply with the law while driving on a provisional licence, Akers’ social learning theory accounted for an additional 10 per cent of the variance above socio-demographic factors with anticipated rewards being a significant predictor. Sensation seeking predicted an additional four per cent of the variance. The results suggest that the more rewards individuals anticipate for complying with the law, the more likely they are to obey the road rules. Further research is needed to identify which specific rewards are most likely to encourage novice drivers’ compliance with the law. In the second study, Akers’ social learning theory predicted an additional 40 per cent of the variance in self-reported compliance with road rules over and above socio-demographic factors while sensation seeking accounted for an additional five per cent of the variance. A number of Aker’s social learning theory constructs significantly predicted provisional driver compliance with the law, including the behavioural dimension of differential association for friends, the normative dimension of differential association, personal attitudes and anticipated punishments. The consistent prediction of additional variance by sensation seeking over and above the variables within Akers’ social learning theory in both studies one and two suggests that sensation seeking is not fully captured within the non social rewards dimension of Akers’ social learning theory, at least for novice drivers. It appears that novice drivers are strongly influenced by the desire to engage in new and intense experiences. While socio-demographic factors and the perception of risk associated with driving had an important role in predicting the behaviour of the supervisors of learner drivers, Akers’ social learning theory provided further levels of prediction over and above these factors. The Akers’ social learning theory variables predicted an additional 14 per cent of the variance in the extent to which supervisors ensured that their learners complied with the law and an additional eight per cent of the variance in the supervisors’ provision of a range of practice experiences. The normative dimension of differential association, personal attitudes towards the use of professional driving instructors and anticipated rewards were significant predictors for supervisors ensuring that their learner complied with the road laws, while the normative dimension was important for range of practice. This suggests that supervisors who engage with other supervisors who ensure their learner complies with the road laws and provide a range of practice to their own learners are more likely to also engage in these behaviours. Within this program of research, there were several limitations including the method of recruitment of participants within the first study, the lower participation rate in the second study, an inability to calculate a response rate for study three and the use of self-report data for all three studies. Within the first study, participants were only recruited from larger driver licensing centres to ensure that there was a sufficient throughput of drivers to approach. This may have biased the results due to the possible differences in learners that obtain their licences in locations with smaller licensing centres. Only 59.4 per cent of the sample in the first study completed the second study. This may be a limitation if there was a common reason why those not participating were unable to complete the interview leading to a systematic impact on the results. The third study used a combination of a convenience and snowball sampling which meant that it was not possible to calculate a response rate. All three studies used self-report data which, in many cases, is considered a limitation. However, self-report data may be the only method that can be used to obtain some information. This program of research has a number of implications for countermeasures in both the learner licence phase and the provisional licence phase. During the learner phase, licensing authorities need to carefully consider the number of hours that they mandate learner drivers must complete before they obtain their provisional driving licence. If they mandate an insufficient number of hours, there may be inadvertent negative effects as a result of setting too low a limit. This research suggests that logbooks may be a useful tool for learners and their supervisors in recording and structuring their supervised practice. However, it would appear that the usage rates for logbooks will remain low if they remain voluntary. One strategy for achieving larger amounts of supervised practice is for learner drivers and their supervisors to make supervised practice part of their everyday activities. As well as assisting the learner driver to accumulate the required number of hours of supervised practice, it would ensure that they gain experience in the types of environments that they will probably encounter when driving unaccompanied in the future, such as to and from education or work commitments. There is also a need for policy processes to ensure that parents and professional driving instructors communicate effectively regarding the learner driver’s progress. This is required as most learners spend at least some time with a professional instructor despite receiving significant amounts of practice with a private supervisor. However, many supervisors did not discuss their learner’s progress with the driving instructor. During the provisional phase, there is a need to strengthen countermeasures to address the high crash risk of these drivers. Although many of these crashes are minor, most involve at least one other vehicle. Therefore, there are social and economic benefits to reducing these crashes. If the new, post-2007 graduated driver licensing systems do not significantly reduce crash risk, there may be a need to introduce further provisional licence restrictions such as separate night driving and peer passenger restrictions (as opposed to the hybrid version of these two restrictions operating in both Queensland and New South Wales). Provisional drivers appear to be more likely to obey some provisional licence laws, such as lower blood alcohol content limits, than others such as speed limits. Therefore, there may be a need to introduce countermeasures to encourage provisional drivers to comply with specific restrictions. When combined, these studies provided significant information regarding graduated driver licensing programs. This program of research has investigated graduated driver licensing utilising a cross-sectional and longitudinal design in order to develop our understanding of the experiences of novice drivers that progress through the system in order to help reduce crash risk once novice drivers commence driving by themselves.

Transforming habitus: Changing self, changing school

Since 2004, Australian Indigenous (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) students at a low socioeconomic area Australian urban secondary school have used participatory action research to investigate issues of disengagement and absenteeism among their peers. Their research revealed that Indigenous students, who made up about 8% to 10% of the school’s population lacked a sense of belonging to the school. The researchers also revealed an apparent official disregard of the academic or sporting achievements of Indigenous students and, more disturbingly, their presence within the school. The young researchers followed up their findings with action to address the issues. These actions have resulted in a positive change of culture across the whole school, with Indigenous students now able to express pride in their heritage and feel some degree of ownership of the school.

Road safety in Singapore

Singapore is a highly developed country that has a well connected island-wide road transport system including a network of expressways. The road standards of Singapore are generally good and road safety level is very high by international standards. This chapter discusses road safety status in Singapore and highlights the practices that have been undertaken to enhance the road safety. Statistics show that road traffic fatalities were decreasing over the years, albeit an increasing trend for total crashes. Motorcyclists and pedestrians were two vulnerable road user groups and shared significant proportions respectively about 49% and 28% of total road traffic deaths. In particular, young riders and pedestrians had a higher crash potential. To enhance safety of those vulnerable road users, Singapore has taken several initiatives including infrastructure improvements like paving better skid-resistant materials at crash-prone sites, providing more rain shelters for motorcyclists, and installation of reflective signs and markings near school zones; safety campaigns and awareness programs like ride safe programme, the road courtesy campaign, and the anti-drink drive campaign. While Land Transport Authority (LTA) looks into road safety through engineering solutions and road infrastructure developments, the Traffic Police of Singapore is responsible for law enforcements and regulations. A number of non-government organizations, private companies, and university research groups are also continuously working with the Traffic Police to study, promote, and educate the general public on road safety matters.

Sustainability in road transport : an integrated life cycle analysis for estimating emissions

Despite of a significant contribution of transport sector in the global economy and society, it is one of the largest sources of global energy consumption, green house gas emissions and environmental pollutions. A complete look onto the whole life cycle environmental inventory of this sector will be helpful to generate a holistic understanding of contributory factors causing emissions. Previous studies were mainly based on segmental views which mostly compare environmental impacts of different modes of transport, but very few consider impacts other than the operational phase. Ignoring the impacts of non-operational phases, e.g., manufacture, construction, maintenance, may not accurately reflect total contributions on emissions. Moreover an integrated study for all motorized modes of road transport is also needed to achieve a holistic estimation. The objective of this study is to develop a component based life cycle inventory model which considers impacts of both operational and non-operational phases of the whole life as well as different transport modes. In particular, the whole life cycle of road transport has been segmented into vehicle, infrastructure, fuel and operational components and inventories have been conducted on each component. The inventory model has been demonstrated using the road transport of Singapore. Results show that total life cycle green house gas emissions from the road transport sector of Singapore is 7.8 million tons per year, among which operational phase and non-operational phases contribute about 55% and about 45%, respectively. Total amount of criteria air pollutants are 46, 8.5, 33.6, 13.6 and 2.6 thousand tons per year for CO, SO2, NOx, VOC and PM10, respectively. From the findings, it can be deduced that stringent government policies on emission control measures have a significant impact on reducing environmental pollutions. In combating global warming and environmental pollutions the promotion of public transport over private modes is an effective sustainable policy.

Publicly verifiable ciphertexts

In many applications, where encrypted traffic flows from an open (public) domain to a protected (private) domain, there exists a gateway that bridges the two domains and faithfully forwards the incoming traffic to the receiver. We observe that indistringuishability against (adaptive) chosen-ciphertext attacks (IND-CCA), which is a mandatory goal in face of active attacks in a public domain, can be essentially relaxed to indistinguishability against chosen-plaintext attacks (IND-CPA) for ciphertexts once they pass the gateway that acts as an IND-CCA/CPA filter by first checking the validity of an incoming IND-CCA ciphertext, then transforming it (if valid) into an IND-CPA ciphertext, and forwarding the latter to the receipient in the private domain. "Non-trivial filtering" can result in reduced decryption costs on the receivers' side. We identify a class of encryption schemes with publicaly verifiable ciphertexts that admit generic constructions of (non-trivial) IND-CCA/CPA filters. These schemes are characterized by existence of public algorithms that can distinguish between valid and invalid ciphertexts. To this end, we formally define (non-trivial) public verifiability of ciphertexts for general encryption schemes, key encapsulation mechanisms, and hybrid encryption schemes, encompassing public-key, identity-based, and tag-based encryption flavours. We further analyze the security impact of public verifiability and discuss generic transformations and concrete constructions that enjoy this property.

The quantum inspired modelling of changing attitudes and self-organising societies

We utilise the well-developed quantum decision models known to the QI community to create a higher order social decision making model. A simple Agent Based Model (ABM) of a society of agents with changing attitudes towards a social issue is presented, where the private attitudes of individuals in the system are represented using a geometric structure inspired by quantum theory. We track the changing attitudes of the members of that society, and their resulting propensities to act, or not, in a given social context. A number of new issues surrounding this "scaling up" of quantum decision theories are discussed, as well as new directions and opportunities.

Modified texture menu analysis

Lower energy and protein intakes are well documented in patients on texture modified diets. In acute hospital settings, the provision of appropriate texture modified foods to meet industry standards is essential for patient safety and nutrition outcomes. The texture modified menu at an acute private hospital was evaluated in accordance with their own nutritional standards (NS) and Australian National Standards (Dietitians Association of Australia and Speech Pathology Australia, 2007). The NS documents portion sizes and nutritional requirements for each menu. Texture B and C menus were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively over 9 days of a 6 day cyclic menu for breakfast (n=4), lunch (n=34) and dinner (n=34). Results indicated a lack of portion control, as specified by the NS, across all meals including breakfast (65–140%), soup (55–115%), meat (45–165%), vegetables (55–185%) and desserts (30–300%). Dilution factors and portion sizes influenced the protein and energy availability of Texture B & C menus. While the Texture B menu provided more energy, neither menu met the NS. Limited dessert options on the Texture C menu restricted the ability of this menu to meet protein NS. A lack of portion control and menu items incorrectly modified can compromise protein and energy intakes. Strategies to correct serving sizes and provision of alternate protein sources were recommended. Suggestions included cost-effectively increasing the variety of foods to assist protein and energy intake and the procurement of standardised equipment and visual aids to assist food preparation and presentation in accordance with texture modified guidelines and the NS.

Digital Storytelling within a Service-Learning Partnership: Technology as Product and Process for University Students and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse High School Youth

This chapter describes a university/high school partnership focused on digital storytelling. It also explains the multi-stage process used to establish this successful partnership and project. The authors discuss the central role that technology played in developing this university/high school partnership, a collaboration that extended the impact of a digital storytelling project to reach high school students, university students, educators, high school administrators, and the local community. Valuing a reflective process that can lead to the creation of a powerful final product, the authors describe the impact of digital storytelling on multiple stakeholders, including the 13 university students and 33 culturally and linguistically diverse high school youth who participated during the fall of 2009. In addition, the chapter includes reflections from university and high school student participants expressed during focus groups conducted throughout the project. While most participants had a positive experience with the project, complications with the technology component often caused frustrations and additional challenges. Goals for sharing this project are to critically evaluate digital storytelling, describe lessons learned, and recommend good practices for others working within a similar context or with parallel goals.

Disobedient Citizens : Press Depictions of Striking School Teachers in NSW and Anti-Vietnam War Demonstrators in NSW and Victoria in 1968

Across Australia in 1968, students demonstrating against the Vietnam War engaged in confrontational behaviour. The metropolitan daily newspapers,the most important source of news for most people, enthusiastically reported the scenes. The demonstrations were exciting. Sensational headlines and photographs captured the interest of readers and influenced their opinions. But radical opposition to government policies at the time was not limited to university students opposing the Vietnam War. Teachers had become increasingly critical of conditions in schools, with Victorian secondary school teachers having stopped work on a number of occasions since 1965. In October 1968, both primary and secondary school teachers in New South Wales participated in eastern Australia’s first state-wide teachers’ strike. As Sydney’s Sun commented on 1 October 1968, “The teachers’ strike threw the ... education system into chaos ... A huge proportion of the State’s 2764 schools were silent and empty.” Similarities with the anti-war demonstrations were obvious. Although not as confrontational, the New South Wales teachers’ strike was a publicity-seeking action. This examination of the teachers’ more restrained, but more effective, approach to challenging government policies provides a new voice and vision to our understandings of the diverse nature of radicalism in Australia in the 1960s.

Introduction

This introduction examines sixteen authors who have contributed to New Voices, New Visions: Challenging Australian Identities and Legacies. The editors explain that the authors draw on ideas, concepts, and theories about nation, identity, space, place,and power in order to rethink stories or reread large-scale and everyday media, private, or public events in new ways. In many cases, the authors are promoting debate on topics where a single viewpoint currently predominates. These authors are introducing to readers new visions and new voices about Australian society and the Australian identity. The editors also draw on the many books about Captain/Governor William Bligh to exemplify how history is constantly being reinterpreted, with new information aiding the reader’s understanding.

Effort-release public-key encryption from cryptographic puzzles

Timed-release cryptography addresses the problem of “sending messages into the future”: information is encrypted so that it can only be decrypted after a certain amount of time, either (a) with the help of a trusted third party time server, or (b) after a party performs the required number of sequential operations. We generalise the latter case to what we call effort-release public key encryption (ER-PKE), where only the party holding the private key corresponding to the public key can decrypt, and only after performing a certain amount of computation which may or may not be parallelisable. Effort-release PKE generalises both the sequential-operation-based timed-release encryption of Rivest, Shamir, and Wagner, and also the encapsulated key escrow techniques of Bellare and Goldwasser. We give a generic construction for ER-PKE based on the use of moderately hard computational problems called puzzles. Our approach extends the KEM/DEM framework for public key encryption by introducing a difficulty notion for KEMs which results in effort-release PKE. When the puzzle used in our generic construction is non-parallelisable, we recover timed-release cryptography, with the addition that only the designated receiver (in the public key setting) can decrypt.