The NZ Transport Agency and New Zealand Rental Vehicle Association are trialling steering wheel tags and information cards to help visiting drivers keep our road rules top of mind.
This initiative will quite literally deliver crucial safety messages to visitors when they first get behind the wheel. The trail will initially start in Queenstown, and its 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.
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, 20,000 copies of the tags being provided to Queenstown based rental vehicle companies. Another 20,000 have been supplied to tourism operators and the 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.
The Visiting Drivers project is part of the Signature Programme(external link), a key action under the Safer Journeys Road Safety Strategy. The Signature Programme includes a suite of projects that are designed to help reduce road casualties through innovation and give effect to the safe system principles(external link).
If you would like more information or have any comments or questions about the project, you can email the team at visitingdrivers@nzta.govt.nz
