TRAFFIC LIGHTS

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (15:52): I rise this afternoon to discuss some concerns about the Department of Transport and traffic lights and the synchronisation of traffic lights. First, in a specific sense, I rise to talk about the South Road and Daws Road intersection, having been contacted by a constituent who is concerned about a friend of hers who was fined for travelling through this intersection; history has shown that she was unfairly fined. I was also contacted by my constituent directly, who said that she experienced serious emotional stress after travelling through the intersection.

The problem with the intersection earlier this year reinforces the fact that there is an issue with the intersection. There was no recourse for my constituent. However, she was shocked when she turned on a green light, with no red light turning arrow showing, as she was leaving South Road, turning right into Daws Road. As she turned, the lights on the northern-eastern corner then showed a red light when she was passing that light pole. To my constituent, this incident showed that there was clearly something wrong with this intersection and the lights and their operation. It highlighted to her the unfairness of her friend being fined for something that was a fault with the lights. I will be sending this MOI to the minister's office, and I ask that the minister seriously look at this situation because it has caused a lot of concern to these two constituents.

However, this incident brings up an even more important interest of mine. I have not visited it, but I have been told that the traffic control centre at Norwood is a very sophisticated computerised operation centre for traffic lights. However, I still think we need to do more on this, and I will give members a couple of examples. One is Anzac Highway/Greenhill Road. I would have thought that these days the more you can get the traffic flowing through, the better for all motorists and also from a safety point of view.

For example, if you leave parliament tomorrow night and happen to travel along that route at peak period, around six o'clock, you can have about 15 cars heading south on Anzac Highway crossing the lights and then the lights stop. Another example is the Beach Road, Doctors Road and Main South Road intersection. You can sit there—even sometimes on a weekend—and five to seven cars, 10 at the most, get through. The amber light goes on and it stops.

I am not directly having a go at the government here, but I am asking it to send this MOI to the operations manager of the traffic light synchronisation depot at Norwood to see whether something can be done to better synchronise the lights. It was raised through Adelaide as well, where the Adelaide City Council has had control of those lights and there have been some improvements. Surely in this day and age, in a state where unfortunately for decades now we have been traffic light-mentality focused at all costs—rather than looking at other options for allowing better flow of traffic, such as are seen the Eastern States—if we are stuck with so many traffic lights then surely we should be ensuring better flows.

With those words I look forward to sending this to the minister, the Hon. Patrick Conlon, asking that he send this MOI through for comment and that we see a response back to me—so that I can share it with colleagues and constituents—where there are some absolute commitments as well as some explanation as to how they synchronise these traffic lights. In theory, if the traffic light synchronisation is working properly and you are travelling at the correct speed, if you start off with a green light at the southern end of South Road you should almost be able to end up at the northern end of South Road having hardly encountered a red light.

That is the theory of it, but if they have such a disjointed structure within their light changing times and formats along the carriageway clearly that is not going to occur. I suggest that is one of the problems they have now. South Australia, particularly the metropolitan area, does have real problems with traffic flow. We are supposed to be seeing this massive increase in population over the next 30 years, so it is time we ensure that we have a better traffic light structure for motorists in South Australia. After all, they pay plenty of money in taxes and charges.

Time expired.