I think there will be no difference at all to the road toll, no difference to "safety" (I think we have a whole generation of people totally confused about the true meaning of the word "safety" as "safety" is how a word that politicians or any gov't department can use to mean whatever it wants it to mean, and as an excuse for all sorts of ludicrous ideas and silly rules).

I think the reason behind raising the driving age is because some nasty, spiteful, bureaucrat in the transport department thought "well I had the opportunity to get my DL at 15, and it was sort of a NZ tradition - a right of passage to adulthood - now I'm going to do my best to make sure that young people today do not have that opportunity). Just like when bureaucrats in government decided that people would pay for their own tertiary education. Their thinking was something like "my own tertiary education was easy and didn't cost me anything, now I'm going to make sure that the next generation has a massive debt before they even start to work". You know sort of "I've had this thing but nobody else is going to get it because I will make them pay, pay, pay".

People who make these decisions do not live in the real world. They work in government departments and start work at 8 or 9 O'clock in the morning, finishing at 4.30pm (nobody else works a 7 and a half hour day) and use public transport all the time. They think that everybody else does too, or those that matter do. I think it is requirement to work in a government dep't that you do not have the ability to reason.

I think government realises that raising the driving age will now help anything one iota, they don't care. They just won't let this little fact get in the way of their spite.