Source: St George & Sutherland Shire Leader

Driving vision: Toyota's Chris O'Connor supports the creation of a motor-sport venue in the shire. Picture: Jane Dyson.

YEARS spent driving across the state as a sales representative taught Chris O’Connor the value of driver training.

Mr O’Connor’s role included annual defensive driving courses mandated by Toyota, his employer.

“I was doing 60,000 kilometres a year, out on the road all the time. From a safety point of view, we’ve got to look at OH&S as a priority,” he said.

“I’ve been to driver training with Ian Luff and a few of the others. It makes you so much more confident.”

Now a national sales manager for Toyota, Mr O’Connor works at Woolooware and often spends weekends driving a classic Celica with the Southern Sporting Car Club.

The club is behind a push to hold driver training on vacant state land at Lucas Heights, a proposal supported by Toyota.

“Motoring manufacturers can build the best cars and safest cars but they’re only as safe as the person driving them,” Mr O’Connor said

“We really want to see something like this.”

Mr O’Connor said a driver-training venue would be useful for people teaching novice drivers.

“I’ve got two teenage daughters myself,” he said. “They need to know more than how to reverse park, because that’s all they learn now.

“I’ve just supervised my young daughter for 120 hours and we had to make sure she could reverse park and handle the car.”

Mr O’Connor said vehicle manufacturers and importers could use a Sutherland Shire motor-sport venue to help develop and present cars, particularly after the recent closure of Oran Park Raceway.

“The primary objective we see is driver training and safety, [but] as a manufacturer, we want to be able to see something of a facility that can be utilised,” he said.

“We’ve got to make sure we have a place to launch our cars and evaluate our cars.”

A Toyota spokesman said the company recognised the need for further driver training venues in Sydney but had not been approached for funding and had no plans to financially support a motor-sport park in the shire.

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