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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-09-13 Daily Xml
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ROAD TRAFFIC (RED LIGHT OFFENCES) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (16:59): I know the house has awaited this speech with great trepidation because of my feelings in relation to red-light speed cameras, but it will be surprised by my outlook. It has been announced that red-light speed cameras will be installed at six metropolitan train level crossings, and this bill seeks to apply the same laws at these level crossings as those applying to road traffic intersections; that is, if a motorist is caught running the red light at the level crossing and speeding at the same time, they will be penalised for both incidents.

Accidents at level crossings can result in very serious injuries and fatalities, and there has been plenty of evidence of that. There have been 24 fatalities in the last 10 years, and the number of near misses is also of grave concern, with 23 reported in 2009-10. We can all recall the horrific accident back in 2002 at the Salisbury train station, where a vehicle had entered the level crossing when it was blocked and a train coming along the tracks was unable to stop. Four people were killed and 26 were injured—an accident that could have easily been prevented.

I have been very outspoken in this place about the effectiveness of speed cameras, and I have argued that their placement in some areas is merely to raise revenue for the government. However—surprise, surprise—I do think that placing red-light cameras with speed cameras at busy level crossings may deter people from trying to speed through at the last minute before a train passes, putting in danger not only their life but also the lives of others, particularly those in the train. So, I am speaking in favour of this measure and the placement of these cameras at level crossings.

The data obtained from a two-week study on the Womma Road crossing at Elizabeth is quite shocking. Approximately 21,000 vehicles exceeded the speed limit, over 12,000 vehicles entered the crossing when the lights had started to flash, and of those 237 were also speeding. Nineteen cars entered the crossing as the boom gate was lowering, and of those seven were speeding. I think these statistics do show that there is a case for putting cameras at level crossings as a deterrent to motorists who drive unsafely through level crossings and to prevent tragic accidents from occurring in the future.

I also note that in my electorate of Schubert six level crossings have been upgraded with the warning devices, and I would have no problem if some of the cameras that are currently hanging out on the roads were placed on level crossings. I would be happy for that to be done because people do some stupid things. When you see them playing Russian roulette with a train, all I can say is that, if we put the cameras there, at least if we see them and they will not be doing it a second time.

I welcome the upgrade of these crossings because they have been a problem right through country South Australia—we still have some crossings that do not have warning devices—and now is the opportunity to deal with it this because I think we have to. Six of these crossings were upgraded between Gawler and Angaston. I certainly welcome that because the train only comes up once a day and people are inclined to think that there are not many trains and they run across the line. Some of the drivers do not even look. So, now they have the warning devices, and the surrounds have been upgraded, I say to the authorities, 'Well done.' We the citizens certainly appreciate that.

I do not support the speed cameras on the open roads, but I certainly support them on level crossings. I believe cameras are all about saving lives and ensuring proper behaviour and not about raising money. I am on the record as opposing speed cameras, but in this instance I am on the record as supporting cameras on level crossings. We support the legislation.

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (17:04): I rise to support this bill, along with my colleagues, and thank the shadow minister, the member for Kavel, for the excellent job he has done in briefing members on this side. I am continually astounded at the risks people will take around trams and trains. Coming into this place on the tram this morning, we stopped at South Terrace and there was a pedestrian walking on the other side. He came through the gates, but he had earphones plugged in and he did not hear; he almost stepped in front of the tram.

People need to be far more careful around trams and trains. Why they speed through intersections, why they go through intersections when the wig-wags are going even when the boom gates are coming down, is beyond me because in the advert with the 1,000 horses pounding down the side of the train—they are going to cream you if you get in their way. The bill, by implementing speed cameras and red-light cameras at these particular crossings, is a good move.

I have some concerns with the way that traffic lights have been combined with wig-wags at various crossings, and I am not sure how this is going to work with the speed cameras. I need to give the example of the Morphett Road tram crossing as being an absolute cock-up. In fact, more strong words were used by the former head of the department of transport and trams a while ago when I discussed it with him. Some $450,000 was spent putting in traffic lights on that tram crossing, which then supposedly work in synchrony with the wig-wags and the boom gates and, hopefully, with the intersection of Morphett Road and Anzac Highway, a matter of 50 metres to the north.

It is not uncommon to be waiting at that tram crossing with traffic backed back nearly a kilometre south to Bray Street, and you will see traffic backed north in Morphett Road around to Immanuel College. It is an absolute bottleneck there because there is not a synchrony between the traffic lights at the tram crossing, the wig-wags, and also then at Anzac Highway. You will see the traffic lights on Anzac Highway on red, the tram crossing on green, wig-wags not working, and traffic still builds up across the crossing. It hasn't worked: $450,000 and it is an absolute cock-up. I have asked and asked for three years now in estimates in this place for that to be looked at and nothing has changed. It is an absolute stuff up.

The installation of red-light cameras and speed cameras is not going to be done at Morphett Road. I hope they can sort that intersection out because I see people going through red lights there, wig-wags going, it is an idiot's action, and we need to stop it. I am very concerned though, that Leader Street, Goodwood; Woodville Road, Woodville; Kilkenny Road, Kilkenny; Cormack Road and Magazine Road, Wingfield; and Womma Road, Elizabeth North—to the best of my knowledge—none of them have traffic lights as well as wig-wags. I know, having grown up in Salisbury, and watched the traffic line up and build up over the Commercial Road crossing, that that is a really bad intersection.

The Commercial Road crossing at Salisbury North, not to be confused with the one in Salisbury itself, is a separate crossing. I do not know whether there are traffic lights there. If not, my question to the minister is: you have wig-wags working there, you are just going across that crossing, you are almost to the crossing and the wig-wags start. There is no amber signal like there are with red lights to warn you that you have to stop. You may be below the speed limit, but you are almost there and it is a physical impossibility for you to stop. Are you going to get done by the red-light camera? Is there going to be a slight delay because you have to have that?

The engineers will tell you what the delay should be if you are within the speed limit. If you are speeding, well, you should be done and penalised to the full extent of the law but you really do need to make sure that innocent motorists going about their daily lives within the law, approaching a crossing like this, are not going to be penalised if those red lights start flashing as they are about to enter that crossing. It would seem very unfair. I hope the minister can give us an answer to that one.

I want to know whether any of these crossings have combinations with traffic signals as well as the wig-wags because that is a complication, and the tram crossing at Morphett Road at Morphettville is an example of where things are not working properly. People get frustrated and go through red lights, and I think something needs to be changed there so that people are not risking their lives, and are not endangering themselves and the drivers and passengers on the trams.

That is all I really want to say about this. I do have a concern about the motorists entering as the lights start working on the wig-wags. I hope the minister has an answer for that. People who speed through tram and train crossings deserve to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and I hope they think about not only their own lives but also the lives of the tram and train drivers, the passengers on the trains, and the families of those and their own families. The opposition supports this bill.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (17:10): I support this bill. Like other speakers this afternoon who have reflected on idiots (you cannot call them anything else) who try to beat trains or drive around boom gates and so on, I believe this measure will help save lives and deter people from doing stupid things. I am not opposed to red-light cameras. If they are used properly in sensible and appropriate locations and they are properly maintained and have the correct certification and so on, I do not have a problem with them at all.

Some people might think I have a vendetta against speed cameras, but I do not. In fact, I am actually in favour of having cameras fitted to the hand-held laser gun. Before I get on to that issue a bit further, I have been arguing for a long time that locomotives, and trams as well, should have a small flashing amber light on the top of the cabin so that people can see from a long distance, and particularly from the side, that a locomotive or a tram or a railcar is approaching.

TransAdelaide has its railcars with flashing headlights, which is good, but that basically applies to people who are looking at a railcar front on. If the flashing amber light, which is available for about $30 at most, approach does not work, I wish that someone would tell all the vehicle users at airports and all the road safety people that they are wasting their time using those amber lights because no-one notices them. Well, they do notice them.

I cannot understand why, for the sake of $30 plus the fitting fee, which would not be much, you cannot have a flashing light on locomotives so that people could see the locomotive, the railcar or the tram from a long, long way away. I think it was the member for Morphett who mentioned someone listening to music, with their earphones in place. Even if that person cannot hear the movement of a tram—and these trams are pretty quiet—they would see the flashing amber light.

The other thing in relation to trams: I think that, when they enter King William Street or North Terrace, they should emit a beep sound similar to a reversing truck, because that would also help as an additional safety measure. Going a bit beyond the red-light camera, as members would know, I have had some experience with speed detection devices. I am still not satisfied that they are being used appropriately, because in South Australia, unlike the United Kingdom and New Zealand, they do not have a photographic capability.

A few years ago, I think it was the Minister for Transport (it might have been the minister for road safety) said that there was no objective evidence produced by those devices. That is true, and that is not satisfactory. If you have a police officer who is not doing the right thing, the system is open to abuse. Last week, I met with the police commissioner, Mal Hyde, and had a very productive and fruitful discussion with him.

I showed him my expiation notice and two others that were obtained on the day that I was allegedly speeding. The commissioner, I think, was surprised that you get that only at the time you challenge it and go to court—so, about seven months after the alleged offence. However, the point is that, unless you challenge it and go to court, you will never know what that police officer put down, and it could all be bogus or false.

The police commissioner admitted that it comes down to the integrity of the individual officer. My view is that, if you are pinging people for speeding, for breaching red lights or for going across railway crossings under this new provision, you should have objective evidence to prosecute and to require the person to pay a fine. In my particular instance—and I do not want to dwell on it for too long—the particular officer, Gregory Luke Thompson, lied in court.

He lied on many points, and I will not go into all of them. People are welcome to read the transcript, and I will point it out to them if they are interested. Sadly, the magistrate, Joanne Tracey, was out of her depth when it came to vehicle and motor matters. She was, in my view, biased. A senior retired police officer told me before I went to court that that particular magistrate, in his words, 'hunts with the other side'.

Without deliberating on that too much, what I am saying is that you must have a system which is fair and transparent and in which you have objective evidence; in this case, with these cameras that will be focused on railway crossings, you will have objective evidence. It is pretty hard to argue against a camera offence. I wish in my case there had been a photo because I do not believe I would have gone through a pretty unpleasant experience (and a costly one) if there had been a photograph.

With these crossing cameras, there will obviously be a photograph. If someone says they did not go through the crossing, well, bing, there is the photo: yes, you did and you pay up. That is the way it should be. Ironically, those cameras, and the other fixed cameras, are calibrated according to a strict regime and they are checked frequently. In the case of the handheld lasers, they are not required to be maintained to a particular standard. The police say they do that, but there is no law that requires them to be maintained.

At the time of my alleged offence, the police laboratory was not accredited by the National Association of Testing Authorities. It had been suspended. During the court process, the police officer claimed to have initiated three different certificates of accuracy for the laser: the first one he said he could not really remember whether he did or not, but he probably did; the second one was incomplete; the third one had not been checked by an inspector, as required by law, and it had white-out on it and handwritten additions in biro, saying 'speed gun'.

What I do not want to see with this sort of provision—and it should not happen with the level crossing issue; if people are charged or have to face a penalty then it is quite clear cut—is any dodgy, phoney, risky accusation, which is the current case with handheld lasers. In this case, I assume they will be managed, maintained and properly accredited in terms of the standards that should prevail. There are standards for fixed cameras, and there are Australian standards for lasers, but the police do not have to meet them. As the judge ruled, they do not have to meet any standard; they can do what they like.

I welcome this measure. I think it is a good measure, and I think it will save lives and avoid the sort of costly exercise I had to go through, where you try to demonstrate your innocence when you are up against a police officer who does not tell the truth and a magistrate who does not understand motor cars or motor vehicle usage and has little or no understanding of maths and physics and therefore you are hung out to dry. I commend the bill to the house.

The Hon. T.R. KENYON (Newland—Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing, Minister for Road Safety, Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Minister Assisting the Premier with South Australia's Strategic Plan, Minister Assisting the Minister for Employment, Training and Further Education) (17:18): I thank the honourable members who have spoken to this bill for their contributions today. Just to answer the question from the member for Morphett, there will be a delay in the road crossing. It will be the equivalent of an amber light.

I think the amber light cycle exists for roughly four seconds, and then there is a delay of a further second after that before it comes on at an intersection, a red light, a traffic light, and it will be the equivalent at a level crossing. There will be some delay. I was pleased that the member for Morphett used the technical term that he did: my preferred technical term is 'ding-ding', but he had a 'wing-wang' or something like that. I am glad to see these technical terms creeping into the debate here today.

Crashes at level crossings can have catastrophic results in several ways. Car drivers and passengers often lose their lives, or at best are seriously injured in these crashes. These serious accidents can also lead to longstanding trauma for train drivers, their crews and passengers. In fact, every year in Australia an average of 37 road users, vehicle occupants and pedestrians die as a result of collisions with trains at railway level crossings. This bill contains a small amendment to section 79B of the Road Traffic Act 1961 relating to level crossing offences, as members have known and outlined in the debate.

Driving through a level crossing while the warning lights are flashing has serious road safety implications. Also, drivers often speed up when they see the level crossing warning lights flash and drive through the crossing above the applicable speed limit. However, the double penalty for these two offences arising from the same incident, when committed at an intersection or marked pedestrian crossing, does not apply to level crossings. This bill rectifies that anomaly by amending the definitions of red-light offence and speeding offence in the Road Traffic Act to include twin red lights, and these are the horizontal or diagonal alternately flashing red warning lights seen at level crossings, known by their various technical names.

These will have the effect of applying the existing double penalty of speeding through the red light at an intersection or marked pedestrian crossing to speeding through a level crossing where the warning lights are flashing. The changed definition will flow on to the Motor Vehicles Act 1959, and ensure that demerit points for both offences apply.

I want to stress that this is not a revenue-raising measure; rather, it is another important step towards encouraging drivers to slow down as they approach level crossings and discouraging them from trying to beat a train or a tram. You are never going to win in a collision with a train or a tram. The risks are simply too great, and a moment of madness by a driver trying to race a moving train can have fatal consequences, not just for those behind the wheel of the car but for train drivers and their passengers as well. That concludes my comments on the bill. I am very pleased for the support of the opposition, and I thank the department and my staff for getting this through here today. I commend the bill.

Bill read a second time.

Third Reading

The Hon. T.R. KENYON (Newland—Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing, Minister for Road Safety, Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Minister Assisting the Premier with South Australia's Strategic Plan, Minister Assisting the Minister for Employment, Training and Further Education) (17:22): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.

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