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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-07-03 Daily Xml
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Speed Limits

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (15:24): I rise to speak on an issue that is hugely important to my electorate, indeed it is one of those bugbears that a number of people contact me about on a regular basis, and that issue is rural speed limits. I have spoken often on this topic in my community. As a rural community, we rely much more heavily on our roads than our city cousins. Public transport in the regions is never going to be an adequate solution to provide mass transit options for rural cities and for regional areas more broadly. For that reason, we rely on our road transport very heavily. So, this issue of speed limits is one that is very dear to our hearts, and I will go through and talk about some of the issues around our road network, because of, in some cases, our almost absolute reliance on it.

It is very much a mark of a city-centric government that it would seek to make decisions on speed limits and the conditions of rural roads from here in Adelaide without understanding the true consequences of what happens in the country. Fatalities within our rural communities are something that we take very seriously. I have seen too often where fatalities happen in the country and local communities are rocked and they are affected by these things very deeply. This is not an issue that we take flippantly. It is one that we are very measured and very considered on. Having said that, we still expect a little bit of common sense to prevail.

The overwhelming view, of my electorate certainly, is that we need to look at speed limits, especially the ones that have been lowered. There are three specific roads in my electorate that have had no fatalities that have recently had their speed limits lowered from 110 km/h to 100 km/h. But it is not only those three roads, it is the inconsistency in speed limits across my electorate. I will give an example that I have given a couple of times before.

There is a beautiful road that is 10 years old that the previous member for Schubert—he has left the gallery—helped to put in place in my electorate which was rated as a 100 km/h speed limit road and it has now been put down to a 90 km/h speed limit road. We have a comparable road which is older but in the same sort of condition, a single lane road, the Angaston to Eden Valley road, and it is set at 100 km/h. There does seem to be a huge inconsistency in that judgement.

There are three roads that are parallel with each other: one of them is 80 km/h, one is 60 km/h and one of them is 50 km/h. For tourists especially coming to my region to try to understand rural speed limits is quite a difficult task, especially when we often have governments out there trying to make sure that those people are punished for their ignorance. There is a review that has happened into rural speed limits that we have been unable to see, but I do have some comment from a couple of eminent organisations, in this case, firstly, the Local Government Association when they were talking about their submission to the rural speed limit review.

In the written submission to the transport department the LGA says that decreasing speeds will keep road users on the road longer and that it is unlikely that a 10 km/h reduction will prevent crashes. They said that regional councils are particularly concerned that the state is seeking to deal with poor road conditions by downgrading the speed limits on the road rather than investing in upgraded roads. Can I say that, as a member of a rural community, that is an issue so very close to our hearts. I have a list of 20 or 30 roads that need some urgent attention and cutting the speed limit seems to be the blunt instrument used by this government to get around it.

The LGA argues that sealing road shoulders can reduce crash risk by up to 40 per cent. That seems like a pretty good use of money. The RAA senior manager on road safety, Charles Mountain, said that he had written to the state government to call for a working group to be established to discuss the issue. His comment was, 'We agree that key connector roads should be kept at 110 km/h where possible.'

I would like to make a few comments on the Mid Murray Council's submission, where they said:

It is strongly considered that information on the contributory factors to the casualties including fatal, serious injuries or minor injuries on all roads listed in the Mid Murray Council for review of speed limits, should be provided prior to any decision on the application of the default speed limit of 100 km/h on such roads.

What they are saying is that we should look at all of the factors. Speed is one but I would contend that speeding, drugs and driver inattention are things that need to be brought alongside what has otherwise been used as a very simple blunt instrument to overcome a lack of funding in our regional areas.

Time expired.

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