Does any learner driver really do 120 hours?

Lucas knew he was supposed to record 120 hours as a Victorian learner driver, but he admits he probably only did about 40.

 “I would just turn on [the timer] on the couch," he said.

“I would leave it on overnight, and it sends you a warning, but it does nothing. It’s pretty easy.”

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40 percent of 18-27-year-olds admitted to exaggerating the hours they recorded in Budget Direct’s 2023 survey.

Cheryl Davies, a Melbourne driving instructor of 15 years, believes that this number is even higher, estimating that 50 percent of learners are forging their hours.

“From what kids tell me, and they’re all honest, they say ‘oh yeah, I just run it on the bus, it’s fine,” she said.

“I can’t believe some of them would even tell their driving instructor.”

By law, learners must complete 100 hours of supervised driving during the day, and 20 hours at night, but many are cruising the streets with a fraction of this amount under their belts.

Learners using the VicRoads learner app to record their hours are expected to start the timer when they begin driving and stop once they leave the car.

With no government official looking over their shoulders, it is increasingly easy for learners to click ‘begin drive’ from the comfort of their beds.

Nearly two thirds of Victorian learner drivers pass the test on their first try, despite their minimal hours of practise, Sprint Driving School found. 

While learners can pass the 30 minute test, young drivers with more practice hours and more experience driving in varied conditions are safer on the roads.

Science Direct investigated how a lack of driving experience and inactivity impact the hazard mitigation skills of young drivers.

Researchers concluded that trained groups respond faster to hazards than drivers who lacked training and experience on the roads. 

Learners who complete around 118 hours of supervised driving practice have up to 35 per cent fewer crashes than learners who complete insufficient hours, the RACV found.

The 120-hour requirement does not demand practising in different conditions except day and night.

Cheryl Davies is concerned that even if learners complete the expected requirements, they may still be inexperienced.

“Half the kids tell me they’ve never driven in the city, half of them haven’t driven around the countryside, or in the mountains,” she said.

“If you’ve had a multitude of different experiences, then you are much better prepared than someone who’s done 120 hours driving around Preston.”

The VicRoads app has an in-built timer which automatically stops recording after two hours of driving. 

This cut-off is to prevent learners from becoming fatigued, clumsy, and a hazard on the roads. But it creates a further obstacle for the learner and their supervisor in completing the required hours.

Learners cannot as easily rely on long road trips to clock up many consecutive hours in a short time period.  

This often means both learners and their supervisor must find time out of school and work to finish the requirements.

After leaving high school, Lucas, 20, rushed to complete his hours to secure an apprenticeship. 

Lucas said that a licence is “one of the most important” requirements apart from his certificate that he needed to meet when applying for his apprenticeship.  

“The commute [to work] can easily be two hours on public transport, and when I was working in warehousing, I could start at six and end at six, and there’s no trains running at those times from my area,” he said. 

“If you don’t have your license, usually you can’t even get accepted in.”

Lucas admitted to faking up to 90 of his hours because the pressure to get his license was far higher than his and his family’s ability to complete them legitimately.

Lucas said he was unable to complete his requirements because “his parents didn’t have the time” to take him on drives.

“Mum works night shifts, Dad can’t be fucked," he said.

Paying for driving lessons was also not an option for Lucas, with lessons costing around 70 dollars an hour. 

“For me, it wasn’t even doable. If I booked lessons every week… that’s 7,000 dollars, and I just couldn’t afford that.”

19-year-old Markus is currently struggling to meet VicRoads’ demands.

Following a minor car accident involving his sibling’s practice drive, Markus said that his single mum of three children won’t drive him because “she’s too scared to crash the car”.

“My parents are split up, and I don’t see my dad that much… most of my hours are with him, but recently it hasn’t been that much,” he said.

Markus has instead resorted to faking his hours, admitting that of his 100 hours recorded on his app, he has accurately completed only 30 to 40.

Davies has seen firsthand how the financial and domestic circumstances of her learner drivers greatly impact their ability to complete their practice legally, and in turn their likelihood to forge the timer.

“Most of my clients who are private school kids are doing every minute of their hours,” she said.

“I find the other class not so much, because the parents don’t have time[or] can’t be bothered. It’s not what they want to be doing, and they’re not on board to help the kids, so the kids fake their hours.”

Access to consistent instructor-led lessons, the time outside of work and school for short drives, or multiple cars can impact whether a learner is able to complete the full 120 hours. 

VicRoads made no comment on the rates of learners faking their hours, or on any plans to revise the current laws to accommodate the rising trends.

In her experience with many different clients, Cheryl Davies argues that the hours driven are not as important as the different conditions and experiences the driver practices in.

“I don’t think it’s about the number, I have learners that are on 80 hours that are great, safe solo drivers,” she said.

Lucas believes that a more accessible option would be reducing the required hours and replacing them with other requirements.

“One of my friends did a defensive driving course, and he said it really helped him improve with his driving abilities,” Lucas said.

“I think it’s a one- or two-day course that they do, you know, swap that in for 10 or 20 hours and keep the other 80.”

Defensive driving courses prepare drivers on managing and responding to real-life road emergency scenarios.

The focuses are learning stopping distances on normal, gravel, or wet roads, reaction times and skid prevention, as well as educating drivers on operating their vehicles.

Currently NSW learners are able to undertake a Safer Drivers Course to count towards 20 hours. 

Queensland and NSW also offer programs which allow learners to log one hour with a qualified instructor as three hours in the logbook up to a maximum of 10 credited hours.

Currently the only bonus program for Victorian learners is the Keys2Drive program, where learners can access a single free one-hour lesson with a driving instructor.