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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-04-29 Daily Xml
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ROAD TRAFFIC (MISCELLANEOUS) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

(Continued from page 2471.)

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (15:43): I will go back to my normal slow speech—slow and easy pace. I thank Hansard for their tolerance when I read that letter. That is the best I have done for a long time. I think that speaker Lewis called me 'machine gun McFetridge'. I think that I have slowed down somewhat. I try.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

Dr McFETRIDGE: Thank you, minister. Before the luncheon break I was discussing the changes to the various sections. I was discussing these changes to section 173AA, that is, the changes to the testing period for the induction loops going from six to 27 days. I was just concerned because manufacturers say that it is 30 to 90 days. In Victoria it is 30 days. So, why is it 27 days now? What is the issue? If it is so good, we should be able to move it out further.

Having said that, I have had a number of concerns with the accuracy of determination of speed by the speed testing equipment used by SAPOL, and I know it does its very best—under trying circumstances, sometimes—to resource its laboratories and staff to ensure that everything is as it should be. However, I have spoken to a senior metrologist—and, for those who do not know, a metrologist is not to be confused with a meteorologist. A metrologist is someone involved in the science of determining the accuracy of measurement. I asked this chap about the testing period for induction loops and his exact words were, 'It doesn't matter, because the cameras aren't accurate', and I was surprised that he said that.

His argument is that the uncertainties in speed detection occur because (and this is what I have been told) these cameras are tested by means of a rolling test—in other words, a police car or a test car goes through at speeds and the people who do the testing check that the camera is reading the speed the car is supposed to be doing. However, because of the uncertainties in speed measurement—scientifically provable uncertainties—this chap said that there are still some significant uncertainties, and he has a real issue with the tolerances that are now in place with, I think, all speed detection devices. However, we will see. The issue of the testing period for the induction loops, however, is one that he did not have a problem with, so I am guided by him.

Section 175(3)(ba)(i) allows for speed cameras to be fixed to a permanent structure such as a tunnel or underpass. Normally they are fixed to poles around the place, and there are 86 of them now, I think. The ability to fix them to tunnels or underpasses brings up the issue of where they are going to be put now. I remember at the opening of the Bakewell Underpass talking to a police motorcyclist, and he said this area will be a speed trap because motorists will roar through the big, long sweeping bend. I know from my own personal experience when travelling through the South Eastern Freeway tunnels where the speed drops to 90 km/h from 100 km/h that you are overtaken all the time.

So, I think this is a good thing to do, as long as the tolerances and the accuracy of the equipment are there. People who are caught speeding should be pinged and treated with the full force of the law. The Liberal Party supports this bill. I hope it will improve the safety, productivity and general wellbeing of road users, and also reduce road wear and tear. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (15:48): This bill will bring to South Australia the Intelligent Access Program for monitoring heavy vehicles and a heavy vehicles speed compliance program, as well as a few other amendments relating to red light and speed cameras.

Safety on our roads is paramount and, by increasing the monitoring of trucks to enforce compliance with our road rules, namely, with regard to speeding and heavy vehicles travelling on local roads, it will no doubt increase the safety of our roads and may even save lives (and we would all say hear, hear! to that).

The regulations encompassed in this bill are based on the National Transport Commission regulations, and will assist with the enforcement of speeding fines and the monitoring of speeding of heavy vehicles—trucks, as we know them. We all know that when a truck is involved in a collision the consequences can be quite serious, often resulting in a serious injury or a fatality, particularly more so if the truck is speeding. Therefore, I hope that the new regulations will prevent some of these sorts of incidents occurring (and prevent heavy vehicles speeding at all) to improve the safety of our roads for all users—for everyone, but particularly our families.

I believe at this point that 98 per cent of our transport operators (truck drivers) are very responsible, courteous and good drivers, but we do have 2 per cent who can be classed as cowboys who are dangerous, and they really have to be reined in and we have to put in place laws and equipment such as this to keep them in check. I support the use of Intelligent Access Program technology as it is already largely in place, and it will ensure that our system is consistent with that being used in other states and territories—and, indeed, overseas.

The Intelligent Access Program involves the monitoring of individual heavy vehicles, particularly restricted access vehicles, through the use of global positioning satellite technology and via measuring devices fitted inside the vehicles. I believe the devices are also fitted on roadsides; I regularly drive past one on the Gawler bypass and have observed its operation. The use of this technology will help to improve compliance with regard to heavy vehicles travelling along roads were heavy vehicle access is restricted. There are some local roads which simply cannot handle the weight of heavy freight trucks—which is why we have designated freight routes in place.

I hope this system will not push heavy vehicles onto minor roads to avoid the monitoring stations. I believe (and I could be wrong) that the system is that you drive under the high arm on the Gawler bypass, and it takes a photograph of your truck and records your details. When you continue along the highway and get to Port Augusta there is another one there, and it reads the information and does a time calculation, which can determine whether or not the vehicle has been speeding. Well, you do not have to be very bright to work out that if truck drivers know that, and know where these devices are, they will avoid the second one; they will drive around it or pull up just before it. I just hope this will not lead to the practice of going around the second monitoring station above the highway.

However, I believe that satellite technology does not actually need that because it can be fully encompassing. The lady nods, so I presume that is the case. It does not really matter where the truck is; it can be recorded from the sky.

Mr Pederick: We are watching.

Mr VENNING: Big Brother is watching, yes. As a truck driver and owner myself, I will have to be very vigilant—

An honourable member: You already are.

Mr VENNING: I am, absolutely; I have never been picked up for speeding in my truck. It would be nice to have a heavy vehicle bypass in the Barossa finished, because that would keep heavy vehicles out of the small towns altogether; however, that is another matter.

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: Ivan, we spend more money on your bloody roads than in any other electorate!

Mr VENNING: So you should, minister. I note the minister's interjection, and I invite him up to the Barossa. I note he was married in the Barossa. He knows the conditions of those roads, and it was around that time that the roads were done up. So I say to him, 'Feel free to come up again. It is on me; I invite you.' In fact, this weekend the Premier is coming up to Seppeltsfield. A good friend of the minister's, Janet Holmes a Court, is commemorating the 100 year old port, so we will be drinking 100 year old port. When the Premier comes up he might have a look at the roads, and we might get another bit of new road out of that.

Members interjecting:

Mr VENNING: It is a very difficult job representing the Barossa Valley; it is very time-consuming, very busy and very demanding—but it is occasions like this that make it worthwhile! Heavy vehicles and trucks do place extra strain on the roads and, as a result, some damage is being caused—cracking of the bitumen, unevenness, etc.—which local councils then have to fix. More importantly, if a heavy vehicle is travelling along a road where trucks are not permitted, it may cause an accident as other motorists will not necessarily be on the lookout for them.

That brings up the matter of Gomersal Road (and the minister will be aware of this). When we were in government we bituminised this road, under minister Laidlaw, but the road now carries eight times the predicted traffic, including heavy vehicles. It is wearing out, and it is still the responsibility of Light District Council and, for a small portion of it, Barossa Council. It should be taken out of their hands. The minister has this on his desk but no decision has been made on it.

I understand that Light District Council is prepared to do a swap between Gomersal Road and a minor road, and I understand that the minister has it on his desk so I hope he will pick that up. I hope the minister is listening, but it appears he is not. Minister, you know that the potholes on Gomersal Road are there, and it is quite dangerous. I would like you to do a road swap on that with Light council—

The Hon. P.F. Conlon interjecting:

Mr VENNING: Well, you cannot expect Light council to look after a road that busy; it is not fair or reasonable. I am talking about the damage done to our roads by heavy trucks. It is my understanding that there are also some concerns from within the freight industry that, once implemented, the intelligent access program may be used to monitor things other than the enforcement of heavy vehicle road law, driver monitoring and vehicle emissions. However, I hope that this technology can assist freight companies to improve their efficiency and access for heavy vehicles on our roads.

This bill will also legislate to allow for the government to make regulations to approve the use of apparatus, such as speed analysers. I think this is a sensible regulation. Everybody knows how quickly technology can eventuate, and any new equipment that comes out in relation to speed detection should be able to be adopted if the police feel that it would be helpful, such as the new radar guns with inbuilt cameras being looked at. I note that our shadow minister is onto these matters and has discussed them before in the house.

The bill also covers the accuracy of red light cameras from the day of testing for a further six days. Police now want to extend this period from six to 27 days as they state that the induction loops are stable and do not require testing every seven days. As mentioned by the member for Morphett (the shadow minister), manufacturers say that they should be tested between 30 and 90 days, so why the government has chosen 27 days as the requirement is a little unusual, particularly when they are tested every 30 days in Victoria.

Dr McFetridge: Lack of faith.

Mr VENNING: Yes, lack of faith, as the member for Morphett tells me. I support the bill. I think the implementation of the enhanced monitoring of heavy vehicles can only help improve road safety. It may also help with the testing of the equipment that we use. I use a GPS in my own car because the speedos on our vehicles can be a long way out. As the tolerances are now so small in relation to speeding, I think that GPS should be compulsory for people who are on the road all the time, as we are. I find the GPS accurate. I have a pretty fair idea of what the tolerances are, and I set the GPS to that tolerance. Touch wood, I have been a very good boy. I have not reoffended for quite some time—a long time, in fact. I am a reformed driver.

I have always questioned these guns that are pointed at you by a police officer. When an officer pulls you over, he shows you the gun. All it has on it is a number. There is no real proof, no proof at all, that that was your vehicle. It could be another vehicle on the road. It could be the previous vehicle that went past. There is no proof at all that that is your vehicle. I am happy to see these cameras included and tested via this technology—to say, 'That's the vehicle, and that's the speed when I took a photograph.' It is not fair to take the word of a police officer or a traffic patrol officer when he says, 'This is you, because I pointed it at you.' It is a case of the victim's word against a police officer's.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Come clean, Ivan, release the lot.

Mr VENNING: I have. My record is before the house. For the record, I did lose my licence. I could have taken a point and kept my licence. I did not, because I felt that I did the crime, so I did the time—no problem.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Release the lot.

Mr VENNING: It's there. It is already on the record.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: What about the others?

Mr VENNING: They are all there. There are no red light infringements on my account, there never have been; and never drink driving either—only 50s and 60s, the bane of my life.

To finish up, I think this is clever use of modern technology, and it has worldwide use. As I have said before—and as I say to the minister and to myself—if you do not speed, you've got nothing to fear, as long as the speed zones are consistent. As I have said, I use my own GPS to show the exact speed, and that is very similar to this technology. I think that, in the next few years, it is going to be fantastic because, with this technology, the trucks themselves will have equipment—whether it is legal or not—to monitor the satellites, to monitor the monitoring gear.

It is going to be a cat-and-mouse situation within a couple of years. I know the factory where a lot of this gear is made, and within sight of that factory is where the anti-detection gear is also made. A lot of this is in Bell Factory in California and down the road is where they make all the detection gear. It will be an interesting cat-and-mouse game. I think this is great technology. If it saves lives, we all have to support it and we do.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (16:00): I rise to support this bill. We have come a long way in how we manage our freight, especially our heavy vehicles, in this country. I was over in Western Australia for a few months in the mid to late 1980s, a couple of years in a row, just prior to seeding, I had a bit of spare time, so I went over and worked for a friend of mine. I talked to operators over there in the trucking industry, and they were saying how they could get to Melbourne from Perth in under 30 hours. That was actually a stipulation by the freight forwarding company that they could do Perth-Melbourne in 30 hours. I understood that they could do it in 28 hours, and that is non-stop. They used the tin for toilet purposes and they had their food on board. This is a single operator, one up.

We have progressed a long way. Chain of responsibility legislation has come through in the past few years, and I agreed with some of the clauses in that legislation. Many parts of it went over the top, I believe, especially in regard to grain marketing where you have to be able to calculate 250 kilos difference—that is the tolerance you have—from your load limits. When you are operating a vehicle, let's say a B-double, that could be over 60 tonnes and a few more tonnes than that if you are under mass management. It is very hard, especially at the start of the season, to calculate the volume of grain to weight ratio. This is being assisted by more farmers putting in their own weighbridges or weighing their loads as soon as they get to a highway, but this all comes at a cost and it all comes with management.

As I said, we need to manage our freight but we have to manage it well, and I think we have to be careful that we do not take reality out of the process. I acknowledge that practices like driving from Perth to Melbourne in 28 hours are absolutely ridiculous, and that is why this legislation, which provides for the Intelligent Access Program, is excellent. It will aid in the security of the vehicle and monitoring the vehicle where operators can monitor the loads as well as the truck, and it will let companies monitor the driver's compliance.

I think even operators have realised that, if they do not play by the rules, legislative change will come in and hit them hard. As I have indicated, it has been necessary over time. We have had speed limiters put in trucks and now, with the Intelligent Access Program, operators will be able to see where their vehicles are.

We must be careful in the longer term that we do not over-legislate our transport industries. As this country is so broad, we could bring it to a standstill very quickly if we do not progress with realistic legislation and make it hard for transport operators to operate. The biggest problem with operating transport fleets because of the distances in this country is managing the needs of the drivers and their families and partners at home. A lot of the time they are away for a week or longer and may get home, if they are fortunate, for one or two nights on a weekend. Obviously, that is very hard on the family. This program looks excellent. Essentially, it can monitor from the sky. It will improve the situation with our transport programs, and I believe it is a step in the right direction.

The Hon. P.F. CONLON (Elder—Minister for Transport, Minister for Infrastructure, Minister for Energy) (16:05): I thank the opposition for its support and the opposition speakers for their comments. They show an understanding of the need for the changes and also an understanding of the industry. There is no doubt that many of the opposition members in their electorates are closely associated with participants in the industry.

I do not believe that anything has been raised that requires a further explanation from me but, if there is, I am happy to address it in committee if necessary, or we could simply move on.

Bill read a second time and taken through its remaining stages.

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