The new law isn't stupid.
The new laws work.
It's a proven statistical fact in other states.
Just because you're effected by them doesn't mean they're stupid.
People will always do whqat they want, but it goes a long way to protecting young inexperienced (oooh hang on, I have twelve months driving experience, I'm going to buy myself a Silvia because I'm the best!) drivers effectively from themselves.
Did you know that 18 year old male drivers are 4 times more likely to die in a motor vehicle accident than the equivilent female driver? Did you know that 347 18 year old drivers have been killed on Australian roads in the last 10 years as opposed to 113 40 year olds? (All statistics are available on Federal government web sites....). Anything that contributes to the lessening of this carnage is only going to be good thing.
Have you ever been at an accident and seen an emergency services worker turn up to find his 19 year old son in the car dead? It's not pretty. And it's not good.
You may not drive everywhere sideways, but it's the inherent male testosterone driven- I'm going to show off to my mates- oh look a wet road, watch this for fancy driving attitude that is contributing as well to the stastics. Okay the laws are a bit sucky, and we also know that education should also play a major part in the overall solution. But lets face it, it's three years out of your driving life. It's not the end of the world.
I've spent a large part of the last few months standing in parched paddocks in the depths of country Queensland teaching young, inexperienced drivers basic defensive driving techniques. Do you know that I can point out to you the ones that are going to have a good sized accident in the not too distant future? They're generally the ones that think they already know everything and that they know better.
This is an argument that you're not going to win with me. I work with it every day, and I know pretty much exactly what you don't know.
So, as Uncle Chop-Chop says, Harden The f@$k Up.