Can P-platers drive a V8?

Can P-platers drive V8 cars?

Literally and physically yes, and perhaps even if you have a time machine, yes, but in Australia, at this time, the answer depends on your age and where you got your provisional licence, because each each state and territory has its own, sometimes strange idea of what constitutes a “high-performance vehicle”. And high performance vehicles and P-platers do not mix.

In short, there are some states and territories where a P-plater can drive some V8s, and some where they can’t, at all, ever.

Unchecked confidence and powerful cars are a potent mix. If you’ve taught someone to drive you’ll have seen a very, very disturbing graph that’s presented early in the L-plater instruction manual which shows the frequency of car accidents causing injury or death at various points of a person’s licensed life.

The graph of accident with learners at the wheel isn’t so bad at all, but the huge, horrifying spike that arises in the months immediately after someone gets their P-plates is truly unsettling, and reflects why your car insurance will take a painful leap upwards if you’re going to let one drive your vehicle.

As a result, putting P-platers in powerful cars seems self evidently like asking for trouble, and is why the majority of P-platers tend to end up in a car as plain as an Arrowroot biscuit. For some young enthusiasts, that’s a fate worse than walking.

Can you drive a V8 on your Ps, therefore, is likely to be a question coming from the younger driver, rather than their parents. Before that, of course, you might have had recourse to the question of can you drive a V8 on your Ls?

The answer, perhaps surprisingly, is that there are no restrictions on what kind of car you can drive when on your L-plates, as long as you have a licensed driver with you at all times.

So, a V8 is fine, even if it’s a Ferrari V8. One theory about this rule is that it is there to ensure that everyone has equal access to learning to drive. If a family has only one car, and it’s a V8, then that’s the only car they can teach their offspring to drive in.

Once they get a provisional licence, however, that family car with its eight cylinders, or even a V6, might well be off limits, immediately.

Understanding why P-platers have restrictions on what they can drive in the first place is a good place to start in our search for the answer to what P-plate car restrictions are, and what P-plate banned cars are.

So what are P-plates and what is their purpose?

Apart from signalling to other road users that you’re far more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than they are, P-plates (red for P1 and green for P2) are the provisional gap between supervised driving on your L-plates, and unrestricted driving on your open licence.

The newfound freedom of unsupervised driving when you get your Ps is countered by a raft of restrictions, including bans on high-performance vehicles in some states. Can you drive a V8 on your Ps in NSW? No. A V8 is also not on the list of P-plate legal cars in Vic or Victoria.

If you happen to live in the ACT, Western Australia, Tasmania, or the Northern Territory it turns out you’re free to make your way in the dangerous new world of unsupervised driving in a V8 vehicle.

In Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, and New South Wales P-plate legal cars are generally defined by a power-to-weight ratio of 130kW per tonne or less. However, V8s are sometimes banned regardless of whether they exceed that threshold or not.

To reexamine the question of why this is the case, let’s remind ourselves of the statistic that, in Australia, 17 to 24 year olds have a higher proportion of road fatalities per 100,000 people than any other age bracket.

South Australian data also shows that young men have a fatality rate almost two and half times higher than their female counterparts. And studies attribute that to a greater susceptibility to risk taking and injury-causing behaviour - driving too close to other vehicles, poor signalling, and speeding (which gets the most press) - to name a few).

So what does a V8 mean?

A V8 is essentially a V6 with two more cylinders. For those playing along at home, that’s eight in total - arranged in two banks made up of four cylinders each (when you consider that many modern cars have just four cylinders, this could be seen as like having two engines in one vehicle).

The ‘V’ denotes a configuration where the cylinder banks are arranged in a V-shape, meeting at an angle, on a shared crankshaft.

These engines are noisy, exciting, fast and typically found in performance cars, which some state governments reasonably assumed wouldn’t pair well with driver inexperience.

Are V8 vehicles restricted for P-plate drivers across Australia?

Provisional license holders, of any age, can drive a V8 vehicle if they live in the ACT, WA, Tasmania or the Northern Territory.

In Queensland and South Australia, you can drive a V8 on your Ps once you turn 25 (not a bad birthday present). Until then, any V8 car manufactured before the January 1, 2010 is designated as a ‘high-powered vehicle’, and is thus forbidden fruit - even if it produces less than 130kW per tonne. That threshold becomes the benchmark by which all vehicles manufactured from the 2nd of January 2010 onwards are judged.

Lumping all pre-2010 V8s into the high-powered basket could be seen as being more a case of lazy bureaucracy than a genuine attempt at curbing young driver fatalities - especially when you start comparing them to some of the P-plate approved cars.

For example, a 1994 Mercedes-Benz S500, despite housing a 5.0-litre V8, produces only 115kW/tonne - and is banned in both Queensland and South Australia. But a P-plater in either state could turn around and drive a VE Holden Commodore SV6, which uses a V6 engine and shares the same 115kW/t power-to-weight ratio as the Benz.

Can you drive a V8 on your Ps in NSW? NSW and Victoria are similar to Queensland and South Australia in that they impose the same 130kW/tonne limit.

The difference is that it applies to all vehicles, regardless of when they were manufactured. The aforementioned S500 is therefore back on the table, along with most V8s that scrape under the golden ratio.

I say most because NSW has a separate regulatory clause for vehicles that “are prohibited in addition to those that have a power to tare mass ratio of greater than 130 kW per tonne”. The only way to truly know if your V8 joins the ranks of P-plate banned cars is to search the NSW government database.

For those wondering, “can you drive turbo on your Ps?”, the answer, again, depends on your state and its specific laws. Turbos are often subject to the same high-powered vehicle regulations as V8s, so it’s worth consulting your local guidelines for clarification.

Can a red P-plater drive a V8?

In short, not unless you’re in the wild west of high powered vehicles (ACT, WA, Tasmania, or the Northern Territory), over the age of 25, or granted an exemption. Asking “can a green P-plater drive a V8?” will net you the exact same answer.

But hang on, things weren’t like this when I were a lad, I hear you grumping.

That’s right. The first restrictions were imposed in New South Wales in 2005, after a spate of headlines involving P-platers travelling at ludicrous speeds and experiencing devastating crashes.

Special interest groups and victims’ families successfully lobbied the Roads Minister at the time to take action. Other states quickly followed suit.

That action included bans on V8s (unless diesel), performance engine modifications, and turbos (unless diesel). That last one became a bit of a problem as smaller, turbocharged engines became the norm.

In fact, P-Plate legal turbo cars were sidelined until 2014, when the legislation was amended to the current power-to-weight system.

What are the penalties?

If you decide to drive a prohibited V8 on your provisional licence you may as well kiss that very licence goodbye. In NSW, getting nabbed will cost you $581 and seven demerit points (that’s an automatic suspension for a P-plater, if you were wondering).

Queenslanders will be fined $483 and three demerit points, which leaves a one point buffer from a three-month licence suspension or a year-long good behaviour bond. South Australians face the same three demerit point penalty, as well as a $428 fine. In Victoria, it’s also three demerit points, with a $395 fine.

Are there exceptions?

Yes. Toyota fans will be pleased to hear that turbo-diesel V8 LandCruisers are exempt from high-powered legislation everywhere except South Australia, where it’s only legal if it was manufactured after January 1, 2010. Aside from that, your only hope is to apply for an exemption.

Each application is approached on a case-by-case basis by the relevant authority. They’re only granted if there’s a genuine reason you need that vehicle for work, educational commitments, or if it’s the only car “reasonably” available to you or your immediate family.

That means you’ll need supporting documentation from employers, proof of ownership, or other evidence explaining the necessity of using a high powered vehicle. Then it’s a matter of paying an assessment fee and crossing your fingers.

Where can you get more information regarding the legality of driving V8 cars on P-plates in Australia?

If you’re still wondering “is my car P-plate legal?”, you can use the links below find to out once and for all if your V8 falls under P-plate car restrictions. Spoiler alert: the answer is probably yes.

NSW

QLD

SA

VIC