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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-05-15 Daily Xml
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CENTRE FOR AUTOMOTIVE SAFETY RESEARCH

Mr PICCOLO (Light) (14:54): My question is to the Minister for Road Safety. Can the minister inform the house about the government's ongoing partnership with the Centre for Automotive Safety Research?

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE (Wright—Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (14:54): I thank the member for Light for his question. I am very pleased to be able to advise the house that the state government has signed an agreement with the Centre for Automotive Safety Research to extend its funding for a further five years to $1.3 million each year until 2017.

Road trauma costs our community over $1 billion a year. This money will be well spent and will be important if we are to bring our road toll down to 80 fatalities a year by 2020. CASR was established in 2002 through a deed between the state government and the University of Adelaide. This partnership has had a profound impact on road safety policy which has included providing evidence that lowering the urban default speed limit to 50 km/h will lead to a significant reduction in our road toll.

When this was introduced in 2003 our road toll was 153. This reduction has contributed significantly to lowering the number, so that by 2011 it was down to 103—50 less deaths on our roads. I am pleased that the future work of CASR will include monitoring young driver patterns, evaluating the effects of the graduated licensing scheme, and monitoring the implementation of South Australia's road safety strategy—all of which will be invaluable in helping to set the local road safety agenda.

CASR has developed a national and international reputation for high-quality, independent research. They work with interstate road transport authorities, Austroads, the federal Department of Infrastructure and Transport and, importantly, our car manufacturers. I had the honour of visiting their Kent Town laboratory and seeing firsthand the fascinating work they have underway. At the time they were conducting research on the impact vehicles have when colliding with pedestrians.

CASR is building on our state's growing reputation as a hub for world-renowned research. It has successfully collaborated internationally with organisations such as INRETS in France, the Malaysian Road Safety Research Institute (MIROS) and the Nihol University in Japan. It is also the only research organisation of its kind in Australia that actually attends the scenes of road crashes to collect crucial data.

I want to thank Professor Mary Lydon, CASR's director, and her exceptional team of 20 for their life-saving work over the past 10 years. This ongoing funding means they can continue to locally develop and maintain the expertise and knowledge needed to undertake their internationally-recognised research. I wish the CASR team all the best and look forward to the government maintaining a close relationship with the centre for many years to come.

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