South Australia mulls special licence, advanced driver training for supercar drivers



The South Australia state government is considering a new road safety law, which could see the state introduce a special licence for supercar drivers.

In a press release, South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas announced that his government is drafting a new legislation that will include “a new licencing scheme for motorists who want to drive elite high-powered super sports cars”. In order to obtain the licence, drivers will need to “comply with specific training and other requirements, similar to motorcycle and truck licences”.

Furthermore, the government is also mulling to ban the disabling of traction control on these high-powered cars. Drivers who are accused of killing a person will also not be allowed to hold a driving licence until their case have been resolved, as part of the new proposed legislation changes.

The new proposed legislations come in the wake of the death of 15-year-old Sophia Naismith, who was killed after being struck by a Lamborghini outside a Chinese restaurant in 2019. The driver of the car, Alexander Campbell, pleaded guilty to driving without due care, but was recently acquitted of death by dangerous driving.

A “mid-tier” type of driving offence, slotting in between driving without due care and death by dangerous driving, is also being considered in the wake of the event, ABC News reports.

According to Drive, while there are currently no restrictions on the type of passenger vehicles for full licence holders, new drivers on a ‘P1’ provisional licence from the state are already banned from driving “high-performance vehicles”, including cars built before 2010 with eight or more cylinders, or turbochargers.

For cars built after 2010, they will be limited to a power-to-weight ratio of no more than 174 hp (130 kW) per tonne.

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Malinauskas says that they intend to introduce the new draft to the parliament by the end of this year. And while he expects resistance from existing drivers within the state, he believes that “it’s the right thing to do”. ABC News also reported that there appears to be bipartisan support for the reform, so change could indeed be coming to the South Australia state.

With the number of reckless drivers on the roads these days, we think that having an extra barrier-of-entry to driving a high-powered vehicle, in addition to just being filthy rich, could definitely help with making the public roads a little safer for everyone else. At the very least, advanced driver training courses should be mandatory for every supercar purchase, so the drivers can more easily understand the limits of the cars and their own abilities.

Banning people from disabling the traction control, however, could see a bigger backlash from owners – especially if you’re in the camp of “I paid for the car, I should be allowed to do anything I want with it”. What are your thoughts? Drop them in the comments section below.