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Speaker 1: Government's making big changes to the driver's licensing system. It

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Speaker 1: includes extending the time spent on a learners from six

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Speaker 1: to twelve months, and also scrapping the need for a

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Speaker 1: full licensed test. Wendy Hewitt is the coordinator of something

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Speaker 1: called the Rebel Licensing Scheme here in mid Canbary. Morning

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Speaker 1: to you morning. Remind us again how this works. How

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Speaker 1: do you currently do things currently?

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Speaker 2: Yes, So, at the moment it is a you're on

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Speaker 2: a learner license for six months. Under twenty five, it's

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Speaker 2: going to change from six months to twelve months for

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Speaker 2: the learner license, but for over twenty five it's going

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Speaker 2: to stay at six months. And currently we do a

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Speaker 2: restricted license which is eighteen months for under twenty five

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Speaker 2: year olds and that can be lowered to twelve months

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Speaker 2: with a like defense of driving course. Oh, but for

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Speaker 2: over twenty five at six months, but can be lowered

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Speaker 2: to three months or the defensive driving course and then

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Speaker 2: you do the full license test. Currently, but they're dropping

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Speaker 2: the full license test and changing the restricted license for

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Speaker 2: under twenty five to twelve months, and over twenty five

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Speaker 2: it is not really changing. It's staying at six months,

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Speaker 2: but you can't drop it with the doing the Defense

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Speaker 2: of driving course was end.

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Speaker 1: What's your take on the changes.

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Speaker 2: I think that they're good. Actually, with dropping the full test,

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Speaker 2: you're taking away that the extra cost and the extra

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Speaker 2: like well, if there's stress of doing another test, a

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Speaker 2: lot of people get very nervous when someone's watching them drive.

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Speaker 2: That in our driving program, people can drively, amazingly, and

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Speaker 2: as soon as they get in the car with a

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Speaker 2: testing officer, it just, you know, the pressure just sort

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Speaker 2: of gets to them.

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Speaker 1: All appreciate that. So I've gone terrible and they.

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Speaker 2: Just make little mistakes that they don't normally make. So

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Speaker 2: dropping the full license test, it's going to take that

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Speaker 2: away and also lower the cost. It's going down from

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Speaker 2: currently you're paying ninety eight ninety it's going down to

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Speaker 2: twenty five ninety. It's just the application, so you basically

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Speaker 2: no iesight tests. But if you're on a restricted license

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Speaker 2: under the new system, then if you could any demerit points,

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Speaker 2: then they reset it back six months.

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Speaker 1: So says months, just a bye by the rules and

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Speaker 1: you'll be right exactly exactly.

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Speaker 2: And that's what it's about. It's promoting safe driving. And yeah,

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Speaker 2: what about the.

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Speaker 1: Whole part of staying on your learners for longer. I

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Speaker 1: think I was a reuble kids Wendy, and you know,

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Speaker 1: a license is a real ticket to freedom and being

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Speaker 1: able to access those after sports and jobs that you

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Speaker 1: know you really need for your independence. An extra six

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Speaker 1: months feels like a lifetime at that stage in life.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it does, and it certainly will impact people like

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Speaker 2: rural people or people on low incomes. But there is

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Speaker 2: the opportunity under the new system to drop it down

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Speaker 2: to six months by doing recorded supervised driving. So it

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Speaker 2: will just be a case of recording your driving. There

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Speaker 2: will be they haven't fet a limit of how many

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Speaker 2: hours you would need. There is talk of it maybe

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Speaker 2: being sixty hours logged and that logged. There was talk

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Speaker 2: early on maybe coming through the drive pro drive goop,

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Speaker 2: which I mean young people are really into using its.

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Speaker 1: Ands he do this, does he do this? And I

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Speaker 1: think it's quite successful for them over the years, So

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Speaker 1: it makes sense just to model from that. The greatest

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Speaker 1: test is James Mega brought up about twenty minutes ago,

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Speaker 1: will be the patience of mum and dad. I ended

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Speaker 1: up doing the defense of driving because it got to

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Speaker 1: the point where you know, both parties were like nap

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Speaker 1: this is too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And that's where you also see that in

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Speaker 2: our driving driving program with you know, you having your

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Speaker 2: partner teach you to drive, because we drive with adults

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Speaker 2: over twenty fight well over eighteen, and they do say

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Speaker 2: it might end and divorce. But the logging the driving,

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Speaker 2: we do that anyway. And our driving program we log

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Speaker 2: with our mentors, you know, the likes of Donald who

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Speaker 2: who spoke to just recently.

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Speaker 1: Wonderful.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he's amazing, and so all our mentors are and

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Speaker 2: they know they loged in a manual that we've got.

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Speaker 2: You know, for young people, if there is a map

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Speaker 2: that comes out, it's not going to be hard for them.

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Speaker 2: But also there is also the option of attending a

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Speaker 2: practical driving course. So how that an approved driving course?

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Speaker 2: So how that looks, what's what the government planning is like?

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Speaker 2: You know who's going to have that course? But that

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Speaker 2: that is really good as well. And you know that's

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Speaker 2: another thing we see in our driving program is that

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Speaker 2: where you where our driving mentors do all of the

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Speaker 2: practice and the teaching, but we have four lessons with

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Speaker 2: a professional driving instructor. We work with two instructors in

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Speaker 2: town and they they're just amazing. Like the difference in

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Speaker 2: our student drivers is you know when we where you

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Speaker 2: still only do two lessons, then we increased it to

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Speaker 2: four it and the difference is incredible. In fact, the

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Speaker 2: testing officers have often commented that our people are well

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Speaker 2: prepared for the test, and you know it's usually if

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Speaker 2: they go past, it's usually news. And that's where you

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Speaker 2: know that taking away that full test is you're not

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Speaker 2: putting people through that, you know, that nervous tests that

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Speaker 2: you know, yeah, quite right, it's just taking another barrier away.

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Speaker 1: I guess appreciate the perspective. Wendy Hill