ROAD SAFETY

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:45): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Road Safety a question about fatigue.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: The Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure website highlights what it calls 'fatal five behaviours'. It states:

National and international research has identified the five human factors that cause most road deaths and serious injuries are: drink-driving; speeding; driving while tired; driver distraction; and not using seat belts or restraints.

The recently released South Australian Road Safety Action Plan 2008-10 states:

Some estimates suggest fatigue is a factor in up to 30 per cent of fatal crashes and 15 per cent of serious injury crashes, and contributes to approximately 25 per cent of insurance losses in the heavy vehicle industry.

The only action item related to fatigue in the plan is to implement the national heavy vehicle driver safety reforms relating to speed and fatigue, and those changes have already been legislated and are due to be implemented later this year.

On 2 July 2008, The Advertiser reported that earlier drafts of the action plan included a proposal to create a new offence of driving while fatigued. When approached by The Advertiser the government insisted that the reference in the earlier draft was an error and that fatigue laws were never discussed. My questions are:

1. Considering that fatigue is one of the fatal five, will the minister confirm statements attributed to her office that fatigue laws were never discussed as part of the development of the South Australian Road Safety Action Plan?

2. Will the minister rule out the introduction of a new offence of driving while fatigued?

The Hon. CARMEL ZOLLO (Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Road Safety, Minister Assisting the Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (14:46): I thank the honourable member for his question in relation to the Road Safety Action Plan which, of course, is a very important plan and we are very pleased, as a government, to be releasing it. Clearly, it has the endorsement of the Road Safety Advisory Council. I believe it is correct that The Advertiser had an earlier version of the plan prior to it being endorsed.

Fatigue is a very important issue in relation to road safety because it plays a very important part in the way people drive their vehicles. If they are fatigued, clearly, they are not concentrating and often can have micro-sleeps. We all know what can happen when people just cannot stay awake, and they certainly should not be on the road.

The issue of fatigue is very important in relation to heavy vehicle driving; it is incredibly important, as one might well imagine. I understand that we do not really have sufficient technical capabilities to support the enforcement of laws in respect of fatigued drivers. Of course, we talk about educating the public and rest areas on key routes—which are very important—and this has to always remain as the focus of any campaign in advertising our rest areas. We have to enforce road safety at very many levels.

Fatigue does play a very important role in heavy driving enforcement, and it is in that area where this comes into play. That is where I understand the initial writing up of the plan came from. The enforcement of fatigue when driving heavy vehicles and compliance is not necessarily my responsibility. However, of course, given the interoperability between road safety and transport, clearly, it is something that I am very interested in. We do have a system in place called Safe-T-cam where heavy vehicle drivers have some enforcement coming to bear in relation to fatigue and heavy vehicle driving.