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My daughter has held a restricted licence for 8 months now. She is now working part-time at a PaknSave, which means that she needs to drive home after 10:00 pm for a few nights a week. It is only about 12 km. There is no option of buses or other transport. She applied to NZTA for an exemption from driving hours, but to my surprise it was declined! I assumed this case would be clearcut... We attached all the supporting documentation, including a copy of her employee contract that specifies her working hours, but to no avail. How should this situation be motivated to NZTA?
It's no surprise your application for exemption was declined, exemptions are very rarely issued except in cases of severe hardship. The solution until your daughter obtains a Full licence is for her to be accompanied by a qualified supervisor after 10pm. We strongly suggest she do not drive unaccompanied after hours as she not only risks a fine and demerits, but voiding her insurance policy in the event of an accident.
Under the new driver licensing rules, she must remain on her Restricted for 18 months, but this can be reduced to 12 months if she completes an advanced driving course like AA Defensive Driving Course or Street Talk. I suggest she apply in the next month or so in order to get on the waiting list so she can get her Full in 4 months and drive unrestricted.
Thanks for the reply and suggestion. Obviously we have considered for her to be accompanied by a qualified supervisor (e.g. my wife or myself). The thing is just that we cannot take her to work in the afternoon, since both of us work fulltime. She needs to drive to work herself, directly after school. This means that we cannot merely go and pick her up at 10:00 pm, because her car will still be at work. The only way to do it is for both of us to go, so that one can return with her in her car. This is not an option, since we cannot leave our other children alone at home at 10:00 pm; they are too young. As I have said in my earlier post, there is no option of public transport.
So the only solution is for her to resign from her position of paid employment, which I believe constitutes severe hardship for her.
The scenario you describe is not uncommon, and experience suggests exemptions in these circumstances are not forthcoming. With novice drivers being 7 times more likely to have an accident in the first 6 months driving solo than experienced drivers, authorities take a very hard line on enforcing the licensing rules that are designed to reduce this risk. Recently the govt. has toughened the Restricted test (effectively requiring 120 hours supervised practice), increased the Learner age to 16 and imposed a zero youth alcohol limit, so we see little opportunity for relaxing the rules.
Unfortunately the only options we can suggest are approaching your daughter's employer to see if they can alter her shift so that it finishes at, say, 9:30pm. Or is there a colleague in the area with the same workshift that she may be able to share a ride with?