Road Traffic (Work Area Speed Limit Signs) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 25 February 2016.)

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (11:17): I rise to make a contribution to the Road Traffic (Work Area Speed Limit Signs) Amendment Bill 2016. This bill addresses a quite common issue in my electorate, particularly on highways, whether they be federal highways or state highways, and on council-responsible roads. It seems to be an issue that I am quite often confronted with particularly at night, and I know that the issue is specific to 25-kilometre road signs. We are not talking about 40 or 50 or 60 or any of the other speed restrictions.

A number of times, I have been confronted with 'Roadwork ahead' and the signs normally progress from 110 to 80 and eventually down to 25. Too often, I see that, particularly where there are roadworks on the highways, the signs are still up. It is normally quite easy to see and quite easy to deal with in daylight hours but at night time, when it is hard to see, or when we have rain, that is another conflicting issue. And this is not just about roadworks.

Many roads have regular vegetation trimming or vegetation clearance on the sides of the road, so of course we do need to be mindful that those machines are operating. We also need to be mindful if there is equipment on the sides of the road spraying weeds and the like. There might also be graders, particularly with unsealed roads, or graders that are grading the rubble back into areas on the side of the road next to the shoulder. Way too often, signs are left up in such circumstances.

Currently, under the Road Traffic Act, there is no compulsion to remove the 25 km/h signs when workmen have left the roadwork site, for example overnight or over the weekend. I note that the bill enforces the removal of the 25 km/h signs when workmen have left the site, and enables fines to be issued if this is not done. The bill would allow 25 km/h signs to be left up if workers had been off site for five hours or less, or if there is an unusually high level of hazard for road users due to ongoing roadworks or machinery that is working on the road or on the verges of the road, and the minister consents to signs being left up.

There does need to be a clear distinction between 25 km/h signs for the safety of people conducting work on the roads and reduced speed limit signs for potential hazards on the road following and during road works. A number of people have raised concerns with me. Normally, when I am out and about somewhere, people would say, 'This is just ridiculous. I have had to slow down for 500 metres, up to a kilometre in some cases, and no-one is there. The signs are up but no-one is there.' It might be something that is forgotten or it is a mistake. If this bill is enforced, it would make sure that people are well aware that the signs must come down.

I want to touch on a couple of local issues where this issue has been raised. In one of my local newspapers recently there was a text to the editor. The person was quite upset, and I quote:

I understand you need to be safe when there are roadworks, but driving for over 600 metres with nothing happening at 25 km p/h between Loxton and Berri? No wonder people get impatient

It is not just the impatience; it is about the message that it sends. People say, 'Look, there are no roadworks. I will just continue along at the speed I was,' and all of a sudden they are confronted with roadworks or machinery. I know there are currently significant roadworks going on between Truro and Blanchetown on the Sturt Highway, and those road signs are left up day and night. I can see that there is a need for the signs to be left up where there is a severe hazard because there is between a two and three-foot drop. The bitumen has been cut with equipment so that they can put in a passing lane. That is a place where we can understand that there needs to be an exemption.

I know that in 2013 the Berri Barmera Council was actually forced to flag speeding motorists down as they drove through roadworks in Crawford Terrace, and then considered closing the road as motorists were not obeying the 25 km/h speed limit. There really are mixed messages going out. There needs to be a clear definition: if there are no roadworks occurring within a 25 km/h zone it is safe to continue and perhaps even at an increased speed through that zone. If the signs are going to be put to 60 km/h, which is cautionary, then so be it.

To slow cars down to 25 km/h, particularly at night, particularly when it is raining, does create a hazard. There was a death on the Sturt Highway about 12 months or so ago. It appears that a vehicle slowed down for what was potential roadworks at night. The truck did not see that vehicle slow down, so they ran the car over and killed the people inside the car.

Again, I think common sense should prevail. I think that we need to maintain safety on our roads, but we also need to maintain common sense. I think common sense is something that I use on a regular basis. I do a lot of kilometres on all of my roads, particularly backwards and forwards from Adelaide up to one of the best electorates in South Australia of Chaffey, but we also want to keep it a safe electorate.

To keep it safe, I think we need to have a consistent message. Having road signs left up overnight when there is no-one there, for no reason, is sending a confusing message, and people will start to question whether they need to slow down or whether it is just another one of those 'bloody signs' that have been left up and not taken down while works have been underway.

Without going on about it further, I think this is about sending a clear message. It is about making sure that the 25 km/h signs are not left up through either laziness or forgetfulness. If there is a clear message to the contractors and to the department doing those roadworks that they cannot leave the signs up, then those operators know that, when there are no roadworks and there is no risk to safety, the signs need to be removed.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (11:26): I rise to speak against this bill for a number of good reasons. Firstly, I think this is an issue which has received quite a bit of attention over the last six to nine months. Particularly from the government's side of things, we have been proactive in identifying this as a problem that needs to be addressed, and that problem is the disruption and congestion of traffic for people, for motorists, for commuters but also for those people who derive an income from the use of the road network—the freight industry—when it comes to roadworks which are not being properly attended to.

It requires a response which is not a small, targeted, one might say, minuscule response, which is what the member for Unley's bill does. It requires a response which is a comprehensive approach to making sure that all people who are involved in conducting roadworks have a far more stringent and robust regime by which they have to abide. Merely limiting the use of 25 km/h speed signs does little to address the full suite of issues that need to be tackled in making sure that roadworks are not imposing the sort of social and economic costs that they unnecessarily can do from time to time, whether it is across federal highways, whether it is across state highways or whether it is across council-controlled roads.

I have spoken several times on this, not just when it has been an issue of some interest from the media during the annual Clipsal road closures or during some of the roadworks associated with the government's record infrastructure spend, such as the Torrens to Torrens works, or what we are about to see with the large commencement of the Darlington project and, of course, the interaction with Port Wakefield Road and the Port River Expressway associated with the Northern Connector project. There is then, of course, that other critical project to improve both the road network as well as the public transport network: the O-Bahn project.

It is not just about 25 km/h signs. I am interested, as the speaker against this motion, to follow the member for Chaffey and his comments about how he has encountered a frustration, either directly or via his constituents, with roadworks that are being inappropriately attended to and the restrictions they impose on the road network, because one of the key failings of the member for Unley's bill is that it only considers 25 km/h speed signs. It does not consider the inappropriate use of other speed restriction signs, whether it is 40 km/h, 60 km/h or 80 km/h.

Those other three ones, in particular, are often used in regional areas. They are used in regional and remote communities during the course of roadworks or sometimes, frustratingly, after the end of roadworks and from time to time they are left out and unnecessarily impede and restrict the flow of traffic. It is an acute problem in regional areas, not necessarily because their road networks encounter the same volume of traffic that we would have here in metropolitan areas or even in regional centres, like Mount Gambier or Port Lincoln, but it is an acute problem when these signs are left out on the state or federal highways or even council roads during periods of time like harvest. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.