ROAD TRAFFIC (AVERAGE SPEED) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 17 May 2012.)

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (15:21): I rise on behalf of the opposition to speak to the Road Traffic (Average Speed) Amendment Bill. I indicate the opposition will be supporting this amendment to the Road Traffic Act 1961, which is to introduce point-to-point speed detection. We do not have an issue with extending the number of speed cameras as long as they are operating effectively and efficiently. Throughout this Labor government, there has been criticism about the quality of the operation of the current speed detection devices and whether they are up to national standards. There has also been a great deal of criticism—with good reason—at this government's addiction to speeding fine revenue.

Over my time as shadow police minister, especially, I witnessed some shameful budget measures by this money-hungry government. For example, we saw their response to the Sustainable Budget Commission recommendations which suggested some crafty ways of raising the amount of money people have to pay to expiate their speeding fines. The response to that, although the government will purport that there was no correlation between the recommendation of budget measures, was to raise an extra $44.8 million over three years in speeding fines. I suspect that we will see a whole range of other sneaky measures to raise more money from hardworking South Australians in the budget that has just been tabled in this place.

The government said that it was about road safety but, in fact, it was a financial disincentive for the Labor government to make road safety a priority. Effectively, the more they fined people the more they made. They did not want to make the roads safer: they just wanted to rip more money off people. Our treasurer at the time, the Hon. Kevin Foley, even said it was a voluntary form of taxation.

My response to his statement was that, if that is so, why then are the road users not privy to the tactics used by government to collect that voluntary tax? We would not allow the Australian Tax Office to be sneaky. They are upfront with all of the rules under which they collect tax from us, for example, the tolerances for speeding that the police use.

We all understand that the police commissioner has been on the radio saying that if we tell you what the tolerance is, that will, by effect, become the default speed limit, but there always was an expectation that there was some tolerance—around 5 km/h or maybe almost as much as 6 or 7 per cent when you are up around 110 or 100 km/h—but nobody ever knows, except that we do know, and the police commissioner confirmed it, that it has been significantly reduced.

Another example of this voluntary tax, and how sneaky and underhanded this government is, is when the police into country South Australia. I think it was Operation Rural Focus where outside police officers—the traffic police were not local police officers but from Adelaide—would go into a community unannounced and look at a whole range of offences, including speeding, without any prior warning at all.

It is interesting, and you will note and recall that Christmas and Easter time are two particularly dangerous times on our roads, and the police and the government are very happy to advertise particular activities during those periods about people getting to destinations safely and, suddenly, there are extra police on the road, so they are, if you like, forewarning motorists that there will be extra detection during those peak periods. Yet we have not often seen that. As for all other taxes, they are generally collected in a transparent way, so why shouldn't this tax, if that is what the former treasurer called it, be any different?

I note the government's speeding penalty regime. Apparently the minister relied on the advice that the monetary amount of fines collected is not expected to increase. We look forward to teasing out those details, although I am provided here with some figures that the police minister, the Hon. Jennifer Rankine, has provided to shadow minister Duncan McFetridge, the member for Morphett. It looks like we will be getting in revenue about $10 million extra over the 2013-14 year and the 2014-15 year, with about $8 million in operating expenses. There is still a net gain from this new change for the government. I would also be interested to know whether the speeding tolerances will be changed under this regime.

However, moving on, this bill will also enable point-to-point speed detection cameras to be used in South Australia. Point-to-point speed detection involves the use of two cameras at two separate locations which photograph vehicles at each of the two locations and then calculate the average speed that the vehicles were travelling between those two locations. The expected distance between the cameras will be approximately 14 to 50 kilometres. An adviser will likely come to the desk shortly when we get to the committee stage. I would like to know the reason for making it 14 and 50 kilometres. Why is it not 10 or 30? Why couldn't it be 100? I am interested to know how those two figures have been arrived at.

The first average speed detection system will operate on the Port Wakefield Road between Port Wakefield and Two Wells. The network of sites will then be extended to include the Victor Harbor Road, the South Eastern Freeway, the Dukes Highway, the Sturt Highway and the Northern Expressway. Importantly, point-to-point speed is measured over an extended distance, rather than one spot, so it is far more effective from a road safety sense, gauging the behaviour of the motorist over an extended distance, ultimately telling us which drivers pose a greater risk on the road.

It is very positive that South Australia is moving towards a more high-tech system, one which is actually aimed at targeting the real threats on our roads, rather than motorists who make a momentary error or lapse in judgement. Average speed is a form of point-to-point detection, involving measuring the time taken by a vehicle to travel between two camera sites. The formula to calculate the average speed of the vehicle between the two points is to divide the distance between the two cameras by the time taken for the vehicle to travel between the sites. It is that speed that is compared to the speed limit to ascertain who has committed an offence.

Under this bill, the average speed of a vehicle will be calculated, with an account of the shortest distance along the fastest practicable route between two points and the time taken to travel between those two locations. It will be presumed that the shortest route has been taken by the vehicle between these two points. Under the Road Traffic Act, that average speed will be permitted as evidence of actual speed. As mentioned by my colleague Duncan McFetridge, we have spoken to the MTA, RAA, Centre for Automotive Research, Law Society and the Australian Road Transport Authority.

I commend Duncan McFetridge and the former shadow Mr Goldsworthy, the member for Kavel, on undertaking such thorough consultation. Our shadow minister for police has also had an ongoing relationship with a world authority on the accuracy of speed detection devices, and we thank Mr Les Felix for the expert information he has provided to the opposition on this topic. As I mentioned earlier, we concur that this is a fairer way of picking up speeding motorists. We would like some assurance that the speed tolerances will not change to an extensive degree under this technology and the new speeding fine demerit point regime.

A road transport operator contacted my office. One of his drivers had been detected by the police with a laser gun breaking the speed limit. He was subsequently pulled over. He offered to the police officer to look at his on-board computer. In these modern semitrailers it is a bit like a black box; it records the speed that they are doing and the location. The police officer said he did not want to look at that and was not interested in it because the truck driver claimed that he had not been breaking the speed limit.

The owner of the transport business went on to tell me that, if there is an accident and a death, the information that is contained in the onboard computer in the transport is evidence that is used by the Coroner. So, that information is strong enough and robust enough for the Coroner to use, yet the police were not prepared to look at it so that this particular truck driver could show that he had not been speeding.

I would be interested to know, when the minister sums up, whether there is likely to be any change, as technology will improve. I am sure that it will not be long before cars and, in fact, all vehicles, have onboard what I will call a black box, but that is probably an oversimplification. We now have GPS navigation devices in our cars, and our phones are nearly all GPSs; there is a whole lot of information.

It probably would not be that difficult for all motor vehicles to be fitted with some type of device, although it could be a two-edged sword in that the police could come along and ask to download the information to see where you had been speeding and book you for something you had done a fortnight ago. On the flip side, it might be an opportunity for you to say, 'Here's the information; here's my black box. I haven't been speeding.'

I would be interested to know whether the minister is able to shed any light on what advances in technology are taking place, especially in the particular case of the road transport operator. It is a very hefty fine for big trucks that have been speeding. His driver was adamant that he had not been speeding and that there was another vehicle in close proximity that he believed had been detected with the laser gun. Of course, he was very disappointed that the information on his onboard computer showed that he had not been speeding but, clearly, the police were not prepared to look at it.

I also note that the bill includes provisions to deal with where drivers may not have been the registration holder of the vehicle. I appreciate those amendments, especially as I attempt to steer a bill which I have reinstated to the Notice Paper this week, which deals with a similar situation in relation to people driving vehicles of which they are not the registered owner. I am happy to see that the situation has been taken into account where a motorist may be picked up twice within a point-to-point scenario, once on average speed and once by a fixed device. Thankfully, they cannot be punished twice for the same crime. As stated, the opposition supports the bill as a measure which appears to be one of the few Labor proposals actually targeting road safety. With those few words, I indicate that we support the bill.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for Disabilities, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (15:32): I thank the honourable member for his contribution. It started out very well and then, after he indicated his support for the bill, it went downhill from there, although I must say that he did pick up at the end when he was using someone else's speech notes (I suspect Dr Duncan McFetridge's notes) and was talking factually, and he was correct on almost every point there.

In terms of the bill, it amends the Road Traffic Act 1961 to introduce average speed detection. Average speed detection is used extensively interstate and overseas. It measures speed over a length of road instead of at a single point. Average speed cameras are said to reduce congestion, reduce fuel consumption and reduce accidents due to traffic moving at a uniform speed, and encourage safer driving over longer distances due to a higher level of compliance. Average cameras are planned for stretches of roads where speeding has been identified as a road safety problem.

The bill extends the evidentiary provisions of the Road Traffic Act so that evidence of average speed is counted as actual speed for the purposes of the act. This means that the existing penalty structure for speeding offences in the Road Traffic Act and the Road Traffic (Miscellaneous) Regulations 1999 will apply to point-to-point speeding offences, including excessive speed, in section 45A of the act, with immediate loss of licence, six or 24-month disqualification, and a minimum court-imposed fine.

The bill also amends the owner onus provisions in section 79B of the act so that they apply to this offence. Currently, when the owner of a vehicle is detected speeding by a safety camera, they are sent an expiation notice. If the owner was not the driver of the vehicle, they can name the driver in a statutory declaration to the Commissioner of Police. The expiation notice issued in respect of the owner is withdrawn and a new one is issued to the driver.

This framework will continue, but the bill provides that any reference to the 'time' of the offence is, for speeding between two points, the whole period of time during which the vehicle travelled between these points. The current provisions of section 79B are designed for offences that happen at a single moment in time and cannot apply where there is more than one driver. Point-to-point speed detection differs from point-in-time offences because the offence is committed during the time the person drove between the two points and there is a possibility there could have been more than one driver of the vehicle between those points.

The amendments to section 79B require the owner of a vehicle who knows there was more than one driver to nominate all of them. In this situation the expiation notice issued to the owner could be withdrawn and new notices issued to all the nominated drivers. The bill provides protection for drivers who can satisfy the court that, although they were one of the drivers between the two points, they did not at any time speed whilst driving the vehicle between the two points.

To use this protection they must first have identified the other driver or drivers to the Commissioner of Police by means of a statutory declaration. Speeding remains the major cause of deaths and serious injuries on our roads. Road trauma costs the South Australian community over $1 billion every year. This bill introduces a new approach to the detection of speeding that has been shown to be effective at reducing speeding over large distances.

The bill continues existing defences for owners of vehicles and provides protection for drivers in the new situation where it is possible for two drivers to have shared the driving. In such a situation a driver can provide evidence that he or she did not exceed the speed limit. At the same time it deters the exploitation of this provision by the unscrupulous by requiring that evidence be provided to the court. With those few brief remarks, I commend the bill to the house.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

Bill taken through committee without amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Minister for Social Housing, Minister for Disabilities, Minister for Youth, Minister for Volunteers) (15:37): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.