The NZ Transport Agency and the New Zealand Rental Vehicle Association has launched a South Island trial of a new resource aimed at providing visiting drivers with an instant lesson on New Zealand’s road rules in Queenstown.
Developed jointly by the Rental Vehicle Association and a range of tourism and transport safety agencies as part of the Government’s Visiting Drivers Signature Road Safety Project, the new steering wheel tags and information cards aim to get vital safety information to visitors at the time when they need it most.
This initiative will quite literally deliver these crucial safety messages to visitors when they get behind the wheel. The aim is to show New Zealand’s road safety basics in a simple and easily understood way.
The pictorial messages are focussed on keeping left, safe speeds, safe overtaking, wearing seatbelts and driver fatigue. The messages and graphics have been developed based on feedback from the rental vehicle industry, Police, the NZ Transport Agency and a behavioural psychologist specialising in road safety.
The steering wheel tags and information cards will initially be trialled in Queenstown, with 20,000 copies of the tags being provided to Queenstown based rental vehicle companies, and the same number of cards being supplied to tourism operators and Police to hand out to visitors.
These new resources complement existing road safety resources for visiting drivers, such as the Transport Agency’s leaflet What’s different about driving in New Zealand, keep left stickers for windscreens, and the information booth at Queenstown International Airport.
The Transport Agency will evaluate the effectiveness of the eight-week trial by surveying self-drive visitors, comparing Police traffic offence data and information, and assessing feedback from rental vehicle operators.
For more information please contact:
Andy Knackstedt
Media Manager
T: 04 894 6285
M: 021 276 3222
E: andrew.knackstedt@nzta.govt.nz
