A car drives past a crack in a road in Seddon, New Zealand
IN PHOTO: A car drives past a crack in a road after an earthquake on the outskirts of the town of Seddon in the Marlborough region, on New Zealand's South Island August 16, 2013. A magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck south of New Zealand's capital on Friday, sending panicked Wellington workers and residents into the streets, but caused little major damage just weeks after a similar size quake shook the harbourside city. Reuters/Anthony Phelps

New Zealand has announced free training for overseas travel agents to help them in explaining road rules and conditions to tourists from their countries. The road safety initiative follows a spate of road accidents involving foreign drivers that raised concerns about New Zealand’s road safety in many of its tourism markets.

Besides the negative publicity for the country, the accidents also led to ugly incidents in which irate locals had clashes with foreign drivers and visitors and even snatched their keys. In June, the Government announced that it will be giving every visitor from China, a road safety leaflet as soon as visa is issued to the visitor.

Multi-lingual

The training package for travel agents is in the form of an online module in seven languages. "Tourism New Zealand has cleverly packaged together all the relevant safety information," said Associate Tourism Minister Paula Bennett. Associate Transport Minister Craig Foss also said the training module builds on a large amount of work that is already underway, including the multi-agency Visiting Drivers Signature Project, Code of Best Practice for rental companies, Chinese-language safety guide and over all improvements to road infrastructure.

The deputy tourism minister said training will be highly valuable to those people, who are thinking about their itineraries and want to know how much time they will need to spend in driving. Foss said the idea is to make sure that overseas visitors have a safe and enjoyable time in New Zealand and the same time, New Zealanders should feel more certain they are sharing the road with confident, informed drivers. The minister urged all visiting drivers to take advantage of the information, which is also available online at drivesafe.org.nz

Driver Convicted

Meanwhile, a Chinese tourist driver jailed for killing a five-year-old Oamaru girl in a crash, filed an appeal. The driver Jing Cao was jailed in June for 18 months for dangerous driving causing the death of Ruby Marris and serious injuries to her family. Cao's car came from the wrong side and collided head-on with the vehicle of Marris family near Moeraki in North Otago, reports Radio NZ.

In the appeal court, Cao's lawyer Anne Stevens said despite the Chinese driver’s unintended mistake, he was given a harsher sentence than other drivers who are more reckless. Stevens said the judge seemed to have sent a deterrence message. But that was not justified. But the Crown prosecutor argued that Cao's mistake was due to inattention and the sentence was fair.

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