“[But] the drivers are nowhere near. The driving is worse now than what it was back then because there’s so many people that are not going through any licensing.
“We’ve got tens of thousands of people on the road that shouldn’t be on the road because they don’t have licences, they’ve had no formal training, they’ve had nothing, they’ve taught themselves. And we’ve got a lot of people coming from overseas that don’t have any kind of licensing either.”
While the road toll is on the decline, Murphy says those in power are not doing enough to prevent hundreds of people dying on our roads each year.
“An acceptance by our politicians of this many people dying and not doing anything about it just shows how inept they are at understanding these serious issues,” he said.
“Because the care and the money that we spend a year on road safety and transport and programmes and stuff is eye-watering – and yet 300 people [are] dying at a social cost of up to $12 million per person.
“Why can’t we forward-spend some of that money and actually improve the situation?”
Data from the Ministry of Transport show the social cost of road crashes was $9.77 billion in 2021 – representing 4% of the country’s GDP.
Murphy told Real Life that for many of the worst drivers on New Zealand’s roads, speed isn’t the issue – it’s just that they “have no idea what they’re doing”.
“They’re not prepared, they don’t know anything about cars, they don’t understand the mechanical side of things, they’ve had no training, they don’t know where they’re looking, their reactions are poor,” he said.
“You can tell when someone is not prepared or had any kind of training by the way they sit in their cars. That’s even a dead giveaway.”
Murphy says while most of those who go through AutoSense’s training are young people, everyone would benefit from formal driving training because “it’s embarrassingly easy and simplistic” to get a driver’s licence in New Zealand.
But he’s opposed to self-driving cars being seen as part of the solution, labelling them “a joke”.
“If you want to get in one of those, just get on a bus. If you’re going to get in a vehicle and go tell the car to do it and not pay attention to what’s going on, then you should not have a driver’s licence,” Murphy told Cowan.
“Tesla’s handed out hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements through their cars killing people because they’ve been in autopilot … The best way to deal with all this stuff is to actually have proper, trained drivers that have proven that they are capable of driving cars in the cars and managing that themselves. I’m deeply concerned by this push in this area around transport.”
Elsewhere in the interview with Real Life, Murphy spoke about his sons’ burgeoning racing careers, New Zealand’s obsession with motorsport and the networks that have allowed the likes of Liam Lawson and Shane van Gisbergen to crack the big time on the international stage.
Real Life is a weekly interview show where John Cowan speaks with prominent guests about their life, upbringing, and the way they see the world. Tune in Sundays from 7.30pm on Newstalk ZB or listen to the latest full interview here.
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