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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-10-20 Daily Xml
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ROAD SAFETY

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (15:40): I rise to speak on a very important matter, that of road safety, and I acknowledge the importance of road safety and the importance of doing everything we possibly can in this house to reduce deaths on our roads. But I also have to say that I am very disappointed at the government's and the minister's claimed intentions to go about this by reducing speed limits on our country roads. This is an exceptionally important issue but this is not the way to go about it.

As the member for Stuart, and feeling quite comfortable to say this on behalf of other country members, country and outback areas will not be well served by this planned move whatsoever. Unfortunately, in the Far North of this state, I have helped emergency service workers, and taken people and bodies off the highway, so I have had first hand experience with this. Very unfortunately, as an active CFS member in the Wilmington Brigade, about two years ago we had a death on the road in our town in a 50 km/h zone. I can assure everybody present that as devastating as that is, it was not the speed limit that caused that death. I will not go into the details of it, but it was a glaring example right in front of me, and it was not the speed limit.

I also had reason to speak with members of the Stirling North CFS Brigade very recently and, as members of this house may know, Stirling North CFS brigade deals with an enormous number of callouts to motor vehicle accidents on Highway 1, usually south of Port Augusta. They said to me, (although this is anecdotal because they provided me with some figures which I do not have with me) that when the overtaking lanes on the Stuart Highway, south of Port Augusta were implemented and upgraded, their callouts to road accidents dropped significantly, certainly in excess of 50 per cent.

So, clearly, the quality of our roads is very important here. Our shadow minister, the member for Kavel, has mentioned numerous times the $200 million backlog of road maintenance that this government has not cleared up. No doubt that would go a long way, rather than a kneejerk reaction to just reduce the speed limits.

Interestingly, in Victoria and South Australia we both have a technical maximum speed limit of 100 km/h and roads are allowed to have a slightly higher speed limit when government departments decide that that is important. In Victoria, over the last several years, we have seen that as they upgrade and improve roads, they steadily increase the speeds from 100 to 110 km/h. We are finding in South Australia that, as our roads deteriorate and do not get fixed, our government is steadily reducing speed limits from 110 down to 100 km/h, so, again, clear evidence that it is the roads that need to be fixed.

Two weeks ago, I received a letter from an active highway patrol police officer, whom I have known for many years, and who has been in the police force for a significant number of years—decades in fact. This officer said to me, quite explicitly in this letter, that the government's plans will not address the problem. As important as it is, and we all want to reduce deaths on our roads, that issue will not be addressed and will not be improved. This officer's advice is that, rather than increasing maximum penalties for crime, what the government really needs to do is to impose higher penalties. This officer made the point very forcefully that there is a very big difference between appearing tough on law and order, and increasing the maximum penalties, and not actually imposing those penalties.

This officer advice, quite clearly, was that if the government were to say that the very next person convicted of hoon driving in our state will go to prison, hoon driving would immediately be significantly reduced in our state, and I think that that is significant advice.

Again, it is not the speed limits: it is the condition of the roads. That dreadfully unfortunate situation I was personally involved in at Wilmington, where a person, I estimate, was travelling well in excess of double the legal speed limit caused that person's death clearly indicates that it is not the speed limits, it is the quality of the roads, and very, very importantly the behaviour of the drivers. Education and driver behaviour is the key.

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