New Zealand Youth Traffic Offences and Traffic Offending. Phase 1 Data Gathering
Keywords: Young Drivers
ACRS
Submission Date: 2015 Conference: ARSC
Abstract
Abstract_x000D_
The ‘New Zealand Youth Traffic Offences Project’ aims to identify interventions that reduce youth traffic re-offending, improve road safety and reduce costs to the justice system by answering two research questions: Is traffic offending a leading path into the criminal justice system for young New Zealanders? And are there more effective interventions than standard penalties at reducing re-offending and improving road safety outcomes? This paper reports on Phase 1 of that project: to scope the extent of youth traffic offending, and identify the most common infringements and offences and sanctions, so as to focus further work. Government agencies collaborated to create a unique, broad brush picture of the path of youth traffic offending through the justice system from the Police Infringement Processing System database, Driver Licence Register (demerit points), Collections (fines) data and Ministry of Justice Case Management System data. Data were at a national level for youth age 14-19, from 2009-2013 (5 calendar years). The main findings of the paper were: _x000D_
* Total youth traffic and non-traffic offending decreased significantly. _x000D_
* The licensed youth driving population decreased by 30.4%. _x000D_
* Infringements are the largest response to youth traffic offending. _x000D_
* 68.3 % of all total infringements are referred to Court Collections. _x000D_
* 72 % of all youth High Risk Driving Offences are Graduated Driver Licence System breaches. _x000D_
* 54 % of first time, and 53 % of total, youth traffic offences were alcohol related. _x000D_
* In 2009, fines totalling $42,054,645 were referred to Collections from Police traffic infringements.