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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-11-27 Daily Xml
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HENLEY BEACH ROAD

Mr KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (15:23): I wish to bring to the house's attention a piece of infrastructure—Henley Beach Road—which I have been lobbying for on behalf of the local council in my electorate, the City of West Torrens. Along with the Hon. John Trainer, the Mayor of the City of West Torrens, I have had many meetings with Mr Les Buckley of the South Australia Police local service area covering the area of West Torrens in relation to Henley Beach Road.

Despite what many people think, Henley Beach Road is not necessarily a straight road. There are bends and chicanes in Henley Beach Road. Just recently, at a chicane or bend near the May Terrace intersection, two cars lost control and veered into local businesses, causing death and injury. Make no mistake: I do not say that the road is the cause of this accident. The cause of this accident was fuelled by excessive speed.

Excessive speed, even on the straightest of roads, can cause injury and death. Notwithstanding the level of driver training, the time of night and conditions, they do not make for safe driving if you are exceeding the 60 km/h speed limit. When you are hitting speeds of 110km/h or 120km/h, if not higher, these vehicles become projectiles and the people inside the car are at grave risk, as are those in businesses nearby. The small business proprietor of Joe's Pizza Bar on Henley Beach Road, who runs a family business, is getting sick and tired of going to work in the morning and finding a car smacked into the front of his shop. We have looked at solutions. We are looking at ways of stopping this. Unfortunately, the Fox solution of bollards will not work—

Ms Fox: Not in this case.

Mr KOUTSANTONIS: —because the bollards could become projectiles. The council does not support bollards and neither do I. I also do not support unseemly and unnecessary guard railing which, of course, may work but we cannot get guarantees from experts that at excessive speeds these guard railings will not be projectiles themselves.

So, we are running a 'not-so-covert' speed camera operation in the area where we informed The Messenger and local residents that this area will be surveiled at night at extraordinary hours where usually speed cameras are not in place. Now I am lobbying for a permanent red light speed camera there. I understand that there is only one other permanent speed camera in operation in South Australia on Portrush Road at a pedestrian crossing.

I am not saying that this is the solution to bad behaviour but it is a deterrent, and I believe that SAPOL will eventually support my proposal. The good work done by Mayor John Trainer is alleviating some of the concerns of local residents. I am working very closely with him, as we often do, given that we represent the same constituents albeit at different levels of government.

Coming up to the Christmas and holiday period when a lot of young people are on school holidays and enjoying a night out, the message is: please do not drink drive and please do not speed. Unfortunately, as we have seen with a lot of these young children, they are driving cars that are extremely powerful, and God knows why people allow young children to be in charge of such powerful cars. The message is that it is not often that the driver is at risk but rather the passengers in the car, pedestrians and nearby residents, especially those on a main road, who are at risk.

I did some work on a committee with the Hon. Diana Laidlaw. I did some research and we found that young men who are involved in these accidents do not really care about what happens to them but, when faced with the fact that if they survive and must confront the parents and loved ones of those they have killed, they alter their behaviour when confronted with that. That may be a message for our campaigners in the drafting of advertising.

Time expired.

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