Firstly my comment was not a serious suggestion to stop crashes, its obviously not something we would implement given how car dependant we are in NZ. I am aware of the socioeconomic impact on education and it does not mean that poor people are unable to complete highschool only that they preform worse on average and achieve less. That sounds like semantics but its not. Keep in mind that in NZ low socioeconomic status kids are on par with the OECD average education level. Its not unreasonable to expect majority of poor people to pass whatever test is done at 15-16. I’ve done NCEA and the hardest part is showing up.

The general reasons that low ses children fail to keep up with the NZ average in school and keep in mind that in NZ low ses kids on average are on par with the OECD education level. Is child poverty no food etc, family does not vaule education, peers do not value education. Offering incentives like if you pass Ncea lvl 1 and you can sit your restricted license would be huge motivator for a lot of young men. You can have clauses (and we already do) that if you live rurally you can get a license earlier to catch the people who slip through the cracks.

Over half of the crashes are related to speeding, drugs/alcohol or both. Thats a sign that people are not responsible enough to be driving. The 15-19 age group and especially males are hugely over represented in every type of crash stat. Which suggests either young people not responsible enough to drive or drivers license test being to relaxed. I’ve recently done my drivers license tests and they’re pretty strict and require near perfect understanding of the road rules and speedlimit to pass. It really is a case of people unlearning the stuff that they used to pass the test. Which again makes me think that people in this age group are not responsible enough to drive.

This study it concludes that “Occupational status and educational level seem to be important determinants of driver injury risk” https://jech.bmj.com/content/57/7/512. Participants who had been to secondary school for less than two years were twice as likely to have experienced a driver injury as those who had been to university or polytechnic. There was little evidence that driver injury risk was associated with neighbourhood income.