Speeding is one of the most dangerous driving offences contributing towards 40% of road fatalities per year. But the definition of speeding might not be clear at first. Speeding simply means exceeding the speed limit.

The biggest misconception of a speed limit is that they’re recommended speeds for driving when in fact they are the maximum legal and safe speed to drive at.
The following is a table of the different speed limits of every state:

Speed limits are different depending on numerous factors including pedestrian activity, traffic controls and hazards.
You might be also questioning that if safety was such a priority, why wouldn’t the speed limits be even lower?
The answer to that is that it would create too much traffic. Hence, the roads are created to find an optimal trade-off between safety and amount of traffic.

Understanding Stopping Distances

Something extremely important to know are the different stopping distances for the different speeds.

Although through driving you’ll come to understand intuitively when to stop, it might be of interest to you to understand the numbers behind when to stop as there are different stopping distances for different speeds.
As a general rule, you need to keep a minimum of 3 seconds away from vehicles around you.

What The Speed Limits Mean

40 km/h

These zones are typically high traffic areas where chances of collisions are higher due to the large amount of activity such as pedestrians. The most common area with this speed limit will be school zones due to the many children present. Bus stops and areas with road work are two other areas with this speed limit.
It’s wise to be wary of hazards in this area due to the high amount of activity.

50 km/h

50 km/h is the most common speed limit as it’s the default speed limit in built-up areas of every single state in Australia except Northern Territory. It’s the speed limit you have to follow if there are no speed limit signs.
While these areas are characterised with less activity than 40 km/h areas, there’s still a great need to be careful due to frequent encounters with pedestrians.
Many areas with this speed limit are suburban areas with homes.
This is an important speed to know for learner drivers as you’ll likely be taken to areas without speed limit signs and be expected to drive safely at 50 km/h.

80 km/h

This speed zone is also extremely common as it’s found in urban areas on divided roads without driveway access, undivided arterial roads on the fringes of urban areas and lower quality rural roads.
Despite a lower amount of hazards, it’s vital to be careful in these areas as they can be typically populated with many other vehicles also driving at this speed.

100 km/h

This is the default speed limit in all non-built-up areas for all states other than Western Australia — where the default speed limit is 110km /h. This speed limit applies to most rural roads but the most common place you’ll find it are on urban motorways.
Although there are a lower amount of hazards and activity in these areas, it’s still wise to be careful as you’ll likely encounter other cars driving at the same speed and collisions will be more heavily damaging.
The stopping distance at 100km/h is over 90 metres meaning you should leave adequate distance between other vehicles if driving on these roads.

110 km/h

This is the highest speed limit in every state other than Northern Territory  and Australian Capital Territory. These zones are only found in high quality rural divided roads and non-urban motorways.
Similarly to 100 km/h zones, there are low amount of hazards and especially a low amount of curves on the road. This means that it’s much clearer what the hazards are if there are any and you’ll likely be able to see most other cars.
Despite this, understanding adequate stopping distances at this speed is essential as higher speeds mean a greater risk of injury in crashes.

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If you reside in Melbourne or anywhere else in Victoria then you’re able to get your Learners licence when you’re 16. But you’re only able to take the driving test and receive your P1 licence when you’re 18 with the minimum requirement of holding the Learners licence for a year.
It might seem intuitive to get your Learners licence then when you’re 17 since you only need to be driving for one year to get your P1 licence.
But there are a few reasons to get your Learners licence as soon as possible.

You Have More Time To Drive

The first is that you need 120 driving hours and in Victoria, there are no bonuses for using a driving instructor. With other priorities like doing well in school or simply wanting to spend as much time with your friends as possible, it might be hard to find the time to drive.
Having an extra year to do these hours provide you with a lowered urgency to complete the hours whilst also providing you with more time for your subconscious to digest and understand safe driving habits intuitively.
If you’re a student in high school, you’ve probably experienced the difficult endeavour of last-minute cramming on an exam and found that even if you remembered enough to take the test, it was difficult to understand the course content long term.
This is because repeated instances of an event over a longer period of time become more ingrained in our memory.

It Teaches You How To Take Responsibility

Another reason is that it provides you with independence and a sense of responsibility.
For most of us, up until the point where we drive we haven’t really had any responsibilities that seriously impacted other people. We’ve been taken care of by our parents our entire lives and didn’t have to do things that could potentially be dangerous.
When you start driving, you’re responsible for not just your own life, but everyone in your car and every person in every other car that you can potentially come into contact with.
You not only have to make sure that you follow all the road rules, but you have to make sure that you’re in general a safe driver on the road so that you don’t hurt anyone or your car.

There’s A Lot To Learn From Driving

Another reason is that there’s simply a lot to learn from driving. Like picking up any skill, you’ll struggle when you start (unless you’re a natural!) but you’ll slowly get better over time. You’ll notice that as you learn more, you’ll stop thinking about certain maneuvers and perform them automatically.
And you’ll learn that this applies to any skill. Whether it’s playing the guitar and intuitively playing songs rather than thinking about what chord you need to do next or studying math where times tables were so difficult as a child but now they’re automatic.
Whilst a large part of your high school life is plagued (or blessed) with a rebellion against authorities like your parents and teachers, you also learn that rules are there for a reason
And while some rules in school are misinformed and imperfect, a road without rules would be total chaos and sometimes it’s important to conform.
Of course, there are many other reasons to get your licence at 16. But these are a few notable ones that we thought were important.

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VIC Learner Drivers Demerit Point System

To understand when you should take driving lessons, it’s helpful to understand the purpose of driving lessons in the first place. Driving lessons, like all forms of teaching are a way of imparting one person’s set of skills onto another.
Hence, driving lessons will improve your driving at any time you believe that you could use another driver’s perspective on the road and pick their brain. After all, driving instructors are professionals at delivering their knowledge and habits onto their students.

Beginners Are A Clean Slate

That being said, driving instructors are extremely effective when you’re a beginner at driving especially if you haven’t started yet. This is because you’re a blank slate. After all, it’s easier to create new habits than to change existing ones.
Similarly, changing to healthy eating and exercising habits are so difficult for most of us whilst others who were instilled with healthy habits from birth find it effortless — it’s better to start off with safe driving habits right from the beginning of your driving career.
However, most learner drivers don’t have engrained habits. It takes hours upon hours of practice for a habit to become automatic and effortless — similar to how you wake up in the morning and instantly go to brush your teeth.
This makes all learners extremely optimal for driving lessons as they’ll be able to begin with safe driving habits. If a learner’s parents have already taught them habits they want to correct, then it should be a lot easier for them over someone who has been driving for a longer time.

Anyone Can Improve Their Driving

Despite driving instructors being greatly beneficial for beginners, if you find in any point of your driving career — whether you’re on your learner’s licence or your full licence, there may be certain maneuvers or habits that haven’t been fleshed out, using a driving instructor to overcome this is extremely effective.
After all, all drivers have weaknesses and if you want to be a safe driver on the road or to simply become a better driver, it’s important to create safe habits.

Faster Logbook Hours

Driving lessons should especially be used for learners who haven’t driven with an instructor before. In order to take the driving test, every learner driver is required to do 120 hours of driving.
But with the use of driving lessons, you’re able to get 3 logbook hours for every hour that you drive — capping at 30 logbook hours.*
This is a way of using driving lessons purely for time utility as it’ll save you 20 logbook hours that you have to do. If you decide to use LTrent’s instructors, you’ll be guaranteed to get an instructor dedicated to turning you into the best driver possible.
LTrent’s students have a 28% higher chance of passing the driving test, who already have a higher chance of passing than parents. And this is not just because they’ve memorised the road rules and are acting accordingly but they’re driving safer and rewarded for it.

*Only available in NSW

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Became a safer driver and get 20 bonus logbook hours
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NOT EVERYBODY UNDERSTANDS THE DEMERIT POINTS SYSTEM FOR LEARNER DRIVERS AND WE’RE HERE TO CLEAR IT UP.

In NSW, there are special conditions placed on learner drivers to ensure their safety. Some of these restrictions include the maximum speed limit of 90km/h and to be supervised at all times by the holder of a full Australian driver licence.
As well as this, learner drivers in NSW also experience the demerit points scheme.
This might seem counterintuitive at first because safe driving habits aren’t well-defined for learner drivers especially when they’ve just started. But if there weren’t these rules in place then learner drivers can commit all the driving offences they want without any negative reinforcement.

How Demerit Points Work In NSW

It’s commonly believed that you start with demerit points and you lose points for poor driving behaviour. But it’s actually the other way around where you start with zero demerit points and you gain points for driving offences.
In fact, this isn’t just the case in NSW but it’s the case everywhere in Australia.
If you go over a certain amount of demerit points, you could lose your licence or permit.
In NSW, if a learner driver accumulates over 4 demerit points in a three-year period, the licence will be suspended for three months.

Learners Are Severely Punished For Speeding

Speeding is a controversial offence because it can happen by accident. Regardless, speeding is extremely dangerous and it’s easy to be careless with how fast you’re going — which is why there’s heavy negative reinforcement for learner drivers who are going past the speed limit.
Any speeding offence will incur a minimum of 4 demerit points — harsh but necessary.
As a consequence, any learner driver that commits a speeding offence will immediately lose their licence for at least three months — this is implemented so learner drivers learn how to drive at safe and legal speeds.
Furthermore, if a learner exceeds the speed limit by more than 30km/h, an additional three-month suspension is added on and an additional six-months for speeding more than 45km/h.
Suspension and confiscation of learner licences at roadsides for speeding over 30km/h can occur instantly if combined with driving without a supervisor.

Getting Too Many Demerit Points

If you accumulate too many demerit points, you will receive a suspension or refusal notice. This means that your learner licence has now been suspended. While your licence is suspended, it is illegal for you to drive. You’re not able to drive any motor vehicle.
However, you do have the right to appeal the suspension.
To lodge an appeal, you must apply no later than 28 days after you receive your notice. The law provides that a notice is deemed to be received four days after the date the notice is posted.
That means from the time the notice is posted you have 32 days to lodge an appeal.
If an appeal is accepted by a court past this time, Roads and Maritime cannot record the appeal and you remain suspended.

Further Understanding Demerit Points

While these rules may seem relentless and harsh, we recommend taking them as motivation to become a safe driver. After all, it’s safer to know that dangerous drivers are off the road so that everyone can be safe.
If you have any questions about how demerit points work, feel free to contact LTrent for further questions.

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EVERY STATE HAS IT’S OWN SPECIFIC RULES FOR LEARNER DRIVERS AND THE DEMERIT POINTS THEY INCUR. THESE ARE THE RULES IN VICTORIA.

Demerit points are part of the system because it encourages safe driving and punishes you for poor driving behaviours. It works because if you commit driving offences, you’ll accumulate the appropriate demerit points.

At first glance, this seems inappropriate for learner drivers — after all, safe driving habits aren’t well-defined yet and you’re still learning how to drive. On the other hand, it’s easy to understand that Learner drivers do need demerit points otherwise they can commit all the driving offences they want without consequence.
So yes, Victoria does have demerit points with learner drivers.

How Demerit Points Work In Victoria

It’s commonly believed that you start with demerit points and you lose points for poor driving behaviour. But it’s actually the other way around where you start with zero demerit points and you gain points for driving offences.
In fact, this isn’t just the case in Victoria but it’s the case everywhere in Australia.
Of course, not every driving offence is the same. Speeding a little over the speed limit is a completely different offence from driving while heavily intoxicated.
If you go over a certain amount of demerit points, you could lose your licence or permit.
For those with a learner permit only this number is relevant:

• 5 points in a 12 month period OR
• 12 points in a 3 year period

Getting Too Many Demerit Points

If you go over the above amount of points, VicRoads will send you a demerit point notice stating that your licence will be suspended.
The amount of time it’s suspended depends on how many points you get. Your suspension will last 3 months with an additional month for every 4 extra points on your notice.
However, you are able to elect to extend your demerit point period — which will force you to commit to even safer driving behaviour otherwise you’ll receive an even longer suspension period.
If you do choose to extend and if you get any more points in the next 12 months your licence will be suspended for twice as long.

Next Steps After Suspension

While your licence or permit is suspended, it is illegal for you to drive. You’re not able to drive any motor vehicle.
This not only applies to Victoria, but you’ll also be unable to drive anywhere in Australia or overseas or you could accrue a fine, imprisonment or loss of your vehicle and vehicle insurance.
You’ll also need to return your licence or permit to VicRoads within 7 days or risk a fine or prosecution.

Understanding Demerit Points

While these rules may seem relentless and harsh, we recommend taking them as motivation to become a safe driver. After all, it’s safer to know that dangerous drivers are off the road so that everyone can be safe.
If you have any questions about how demerit points work, feel free to contact Ltrent for further questions.
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Why Do I Need 120 Hours To Take A Driving Test?
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Should I Record My Logbook Hours With My Parents Or An Instructor?

RECORDING HOURS IN YOUR LOGBOOK NOT ONLY WILL PREPARE YOU FOR YOUR DRIVING TEST, BUT WILL MAKE YOU A SAFER DRIVER.

So you finally have your Learner’s licence and you’re excited to finally drive. But you can’t drive alone yet. You need a supervisor.
In fact, you need 120 hours of supervised driving until you’re able to finally drive independently.
It’s daunting and kind of overwhelming isn’t it?
But we hope that if you understood why you need the whole 120 logbook hours to take a driving test, it’ll bring you some clarity.

Practice Makes Perfect

One thing you should know is that even though P-Plate drivers do the 120 driving hours, they’re still more likely to crash. In fact, they’re 30 times more likely to crash and 3 times more likely to be injured or killed in the crash.
And that’s even though they’ve practiced hour after hour. It’s why there are restrictions on P-Platers such as the inability to make calls on Bluetooth or loud speaker and only being able to drive at a certain speed limit.
It might sound obvious, but practicing more reduces your chance of crashing. Practicing driving more establishes safe driving habits because of the amount of repetition you’ll be doing.
You know how when you wake up, you go straight to the bathroom to start brushing your teeth? Or when you’re hungry, you immediately start thinking about all the different ways you can get food?
That’s how you know a habit has stuck.

We Put These Habits Into Your Driving

At LTrent, we want driving habits to stick to you the way the other habits in your life have stuck to you.
When you start driving, you might find that if you wanted to turn or slow down that you would have to think about it first. It’s only through driving more and more that you’ll be able to do these actions automatically.
We want you to start slowing down as soon as you see a red light, not once you’ve noticed you’re too close. We want you to be checking your mirrors and your blind spots as soon as you want to change lanes instead of panicking and not knowing what to do.
We don’t just want our drivers to be able to pass an exam. We want them to be safe on the road. We want their safe driving habits to be so intuitive that they’ll be executed immediately and appropriately without thinking.
But the amount of hours of driving isn’t the only factor that puts these habits into your driving. After all, you actually have to practice these habits.
You have to be put into situations where you’ll need to implement these habits.
Our instructors are taught to place students into situations where they can practice all of the safe driving habits not just required to pass the driving test but to also drive safely on the road.
And as you can already understand, doing these habits over and over again will make them truly automatic.
If you need help getting your driving hours up we have a few tips for you.

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You’ve been driving for a while now. In fact, you’ve almost completed the 120 logbook hours required to take a driving test. And you’re mentally ready too.
You’ve had some lessons with our LTrent instructors and they’ve told you that you’re ready to take the driving test and finally drive alone.
But you have a problem.
You lost your logbook.

Losing your logbook

We’ve written about the differences between having a physical and digital logbook here, but one thing we didn’t mention about physical logbooks was that it was possible to lose them.
Most people won’t lose them. But sometimes things happen. You might’ve washed it by accident, left it in someone else’s car or maybe even the family dog ate it.
Nevertheless, you’re in this horrible situation where you don’t have the logbook which you recorded all your driving hours in.
The one thing you shouldn’t do is to show up to your driving test telling them that you lost your logbook.

What to do after you lost your logbook

Sadly, there isn’t much you can do if you lose your logbook. You can sign up for a new one over here and inform the RMS about your situation. Keep in mind that there’s not much you can do about it.
Luckily, if you’ve been a student of LTrent, you can easily get all the hours you’ve done with us back. We keep a digital log of every single one of our lessons and we can easily transfer the lessons you’ve done with us onto a new logbook.
This is another advantage of using LTrent — we record every single lesson so that if anything does happen to your logbook, we’re able to help you with it.

Preventing loss

This is one of those situations where some people might mock you for losing something so important. But we know that’s unhelpful. Bad things happen for no particular reason sometimes and this is one of them.
Certainly, you didn’t try to lose your logbook. Regardless, if you’re worried about losing your logbook we have a few tips for you.
You can photocopy or take photos of your logbook every time you fill in a page just in case something happens to your logbook.
Another precaution you can take is to always keep it in the same place, for example, the car, so you can avoid losing it or getting it damaged (unless someone breaks into your car and decides to take your logbook).
Keeping it in the same place also ensures that you always know where your logbook is.

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DRIVING WITH YOUR PARENTS AND DRIVING WITH AN INSTRUCTOR MIGHT SEEM TO BE THE SAME BUT HAVE MANY DIFFERENCES.

You’re a beginner at driving and want to learn how to drive a new car. Or maybe you just want to pass your driving test so you can finally drive without supervision.
But you need to do a total of 120 logbook hours to be permitted to take the driving test. You’re going to need someone to teach you.
The two most popular supervisors that people use are parents and instructors. We’re going to be looking at the differences between the two.

Driving With Parents

There are several benefits to driving with parents. You might feel more comfortable with them and the option might be more flexible to your schedule.
But the main benefit of driving with parents is cost. Driving instructors cost money and it seems like a perfect way to save money to drive with your parents.
Of course, there are issues with learning to drive with parents. Your parents weren’t formally taught the road rules and might not be up to date with traffic laws.
They might intuitively know how to drive, but teaching it is a whole other story.
We found that parents have a good chance of passing on bad driving habits onto their children.
The British School of Motoring found that the top 5 of these habits were:

• Forgetting to check mirrors
• Crossing hands while steering
• Speeding
• Tailgating too close
• Answering phones while driving

On top of this, we found that parents were less rational and overprotective of their children. It’s common for learners to mention that they experience yelling with their parents and that it caused the driving experience to be scary and uncomfortable.
Despite this, parents still have their place in teaching driving — especially if you’ve already logged some hours with an instructor and have become a better driver.

Driving With An Instructor

Naturally, at LTrent we recommend using a driving instructor to do as many hours as possible.
LTrent’s students have a 28% higher chance of passing the driving test than the NSW average. This is achieved by learning the Trent Method and passing the Trent On Road Test.
The first reason to use a driving instructor is that you’re able to get 3 hours for every hour with a driving instructor — capping at 30 logbook hours or 10 hours of driving.
This is extremely time efficient as it’ll save you 20 hours of driving than if you did all your hours with your parents. Not only that, you’re guaranteed to get an instructor that not only cares about helping you pass your driving test but helping you become a safer driver.
After all, that’s why our students are so successful.
In general, driving with an instructor has many benefits beyond helping you get your logbook hours up.
Instructors teach driving for a living. They’re well-versed in every single mistake that a learner can make, they’re up to date with all the road rules and traffic laws and they know how they can transfer their knowledge onto you because they’ve done it more than just a few times.
Beyond this, driving instructors are able to remain impartial in their judgement and you surely won’t have them yelling at you for making mistakes and are guaranteed a calmer experience.
Book your lesson with us today!

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Why Your Night Driving Logbook Hours Are Important
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Why You Shouldn’t You Fake Your Logbook Hours?

RECORDING NIGHT DRIVING HOURS IN YOUR LOGBOOK WILL NOT ONLY PREPARE YOU FOR YOUR DRIVING TEST, BUT WILL MAKE YOU A SAFER DRIVER.

Every learner driver needs to record 120 hours of driving in their logbook. Of these 120 hours, a minimum of 20 hours must be done at night time.
The first thing that comes to mind might be why you even need to drive at night. Becoming skilled at night driving is important because driving at night is simply — more difficult.
The most obvious difficulty is the fact that it’s harder to see. It’s easy to brush this off with a simple solution of turning your headlights on so you can see, but it isn’t quite as simple as that.
After all, P1 drivers are 6 to 7 times more likely to crash at night time.
There are less visual clues when you’re driving at night and consequently, it’s more difficult to see people, bikes and obstacles. Not only that, but the fact that there are other cars with headlights on means that you can be dazzled — reducing your focus.
Getting used to the night-time environment while driving takes some time and practice.
Here are some tips for night time driving to help you record your logbook hours safely. The last thing you want to happen is to have an accident before you even take your driving test.

Tips To Stay Safe At Night

• Make sure all your lights are working including your front, rear, brake lights and high beam
• If it’s getting dark, make sure to turn your headlights on — a good rule of thumb is to turn your lights on if street lights are on
• You must keep your headlights on low beam if a vehicle ahead of you is within 200 metres
• If you are dazzled by another car’s headlights slow down
• Fatigue is common at night so if you experience tiredness, make sure to take a break

When To Drive At Night

We wrote about tips to get your logbook hours here. One thing we discussed was creating a routine to drive consistently so you can experience constantly recording logbook hours.
This is applicable to night driving where you can make sure you go driving after dinner when it’s dark.
Of course, if this isn’t convenient for you, then you can find your own routine and a time that suits you. The most important thing you can do to improve your night driving is to simply do it.
We like to use the analogy that you can’t learn to drive a car by reading a book about it. While we can give you tips and tricks on how to stay safe, it’s up to you to put in the hours.
Being able to consistently drive at night will greatly improve your skill and confidence in night driving and you’ll be able to log the night hours required to take the driving test.
If you want to learn more about night driving, make sure to book a driving lesson  with one of LTrent’s instructors. We’re committed to making sure that you drive safely as well as educating you both in the theory and practice of night driving.

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