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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-07-03 Daily Xml
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ROAD TRAFFIC (OVERTAKING BICYCLES) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. M. PARNELL (16:05): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Road Traffic Act 1961. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. M. PARNELL (16:06): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Greens private member's bill that I introduce today aims to promote the safety of cyclists by amending the Road Traffic Act to provide for a minimum safe passing distance that must be observed by motorists when overtaking bicycle riders on the road. This bill and others like it are being introduced around Australia at the request of the Amy Gillett Foundation, and I want to acknowledge the work of the foundation on this issue.

As many in this house would know, the Amy Gillett Foundation was born out of tragedy—the death of cyclist Amy Gillett, who was hit by an out of control motorist while cycling with her national teammates in Germany. The foundation aims to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future, and advocating for law reform is a key component for making cycling safer.

I acknowledge the presence in the gallery today of Amy's mother and father, Mary and Denis Safe, and I acknowledge their ongoing advocacy for cycling safety. Mary has written to many members of parliament, urging law reform to make cycling safer. She tells me that the response she has received so far is encouraging. I also acknowledge Amy's husband, Simon Gillett, and also Tracey Gaudry, CEO of the Amy Gillett Foundation, who is here in Adelaide today for the South Australian launch of the Amy Gillett Foundation Share the Road tour which will be held in just a few hours' time.

Also, I need to acknowledge the presence of Senator Penny Wright in the gallery who, as many members would know, campaigned for the Senate from a wheelchair having been hit by a car whilst riding her bicycle in 2010.

The Hon. T.J. Stephens: And she has been long suffering.

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. M. PARNELL: As everyone knows, cycling is a great sport, it is great recreation and it is a great form of transport. It is good for your health, it is good for the planet, it is cheap and it reduces congestion by occupying less of the road. Another benefit often overlooked is that cycling provides mobility for those who cannot drive, particularly young people. It opens up opportunities and helps develop independence.

According to research conducted by the Cycling Promotion Fund and supported by various state and territory governments, countries where people use active transport have lower rates of obesity. In Denmark where many people cycle to work, it has been shown that commuting cyclists have a substantially lower mortality rate. A recent study of 7,000 Australians showed that those who drive a car to work are 13 per cent more likely to be overweight or obese and are less likely to engage in adequate levels of physical activity. We know that lack of physical activity is second only to tobacco as the most important health risk in Australia. Regular physical activity increases life expectancy and reduces the risk of chronic illness or death.

However, cycling is not without risk and there is still an average of 35 cyclists killed nationally each year on our roads, and a further 9,500 cyclists are seriously injured as a result of collisions. Nevertheless, cycling is not of itself unsafe and, in fact, has lower injury rates than many other forms of sport, exercise and active recreation. In fact, when you look at hospitalisation figures per 100,000 participants in various sports, we see that cycling ranks lower than netball and basketball, certainly lower than the contact sports like rugby and football, and only about a tenth of wheeled motor sports.

Whilst cycling injury rates are far below other activities, they can be improved. Most cycling is conducted on public roads, and that is where the main improvements can be made. In 2011 there were 4 million cyclists nationally and bicycles have outsold cars in Australia every year for at least the last decade. In terms of individual benefits, one study has suggested that regular cycling provides a net benefit to personal health that outweighs its risk of injury by a factor of 20 to one.

For years advertising campaigns exhorting us to share the road have tried to modify attitudes, particularly amongst motorists. Other strategies have relied on the assumption that if we can encourage more cycling then there will be safety in numbers, which was in fact the title of the state government's own cycling strategy, a strategy which has now expired and is yet to be replaced.

The bill before us proposes a one-metre minimum overtaking distance to provide a protective space between bicycles and overtaking cars, trucks and motorbikes. The objective is to reduce the risk of crashes and therefore reduce the rate of injury or death. On higher speed roads the distance needs to be greater, and the bill sets it at 1.5 meters. In a nutshell, that is what the bill does. It is very simple. So why is it needed? At present Australian Road Rules, Rule 144 provides:

A driver overtaking a vehicle:

(a) must pass the vehicle at a sufficient distance to avoid a collision with the vehicle or obstructing the path of the vehicle;

That rule does not distinguish between a vulnerable road user, such as a bicycle rider, or other vehicles, such as cars or trucks. The phrase 'sufficient distance' is only defined in terms of the outcome.

In relation to cyclists, if as a motorist you did not actually collide with a cyclist or obstruct his or her progress, then the distance must have been sufficient. Clearly that is not good enough. A motorist does not have to actually hit a cyclist to force them off the road or, worse still, under the wheels.

A rule that effectively says you can get as close as you like provided you do not collide is clearly inadequate. Ideally, an amendment to the Australian Road Rules is what is needed, but until that happens we need to take this on state-by-state. I am pleased on behalf of the Greens to be introducing this bill today, but similar bills will be introduced progressively around Australia, mostly by Greens MPs but in some cases other MPs as well.

The Queensland government is actively investigating whether it should legislate, particularly following the death of Richard Pollett, a 25-year-old musician who was crushed under the wheels of a cement truck while cycling in Brisbane in September 2011. Richard Pollett was a virtuoso violinist and was due to perform with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra when he was killed by a truck overtaking him on Moggill Road, which is a two-lane road through the suburb of Kenmore.

In May this year the driver was found not guilty of dangerous driving despite the clear evidence that his decision to overtake a cyclist on a narrow road with oncoming vehicles was the most likely reason the cyclist was killed. As the truck driver's barrister said, his client was under the honest and reasonable belief that there was enough room on the road to safely overtake him. That was enough for the driver to be acquitted. If the rules were clearer, if the understanding of motorists as to a safe overtaking distance was clearer, then perhaps this death could have been avoided.

The Amy Gillett Foundation has been working on this campaign for four years, but the campaign really goes back much further. In my experience, the first two community organisations that I joined when I came to South Australia in 1989 were the South Australian Touring Cyclists Association, now called Bicycle SA, and the Cyclists Protection Association (CPA), now called the Bicycle Institute of South Australia.

The CPA—and I am glad they changed their name—sold a T-shirt, which I still have and occasionally still wear, which has a picture of a cyclist and a car with the caption 'Give Cyclists a metre', and this is what we were wearing on the streets of Adelaide in about 1993. So this campaign certainly goes back a long way. Whilst the campaign is not new, the idea of introducing into parliament an amendment to the Road Traffic Act is new, and I am glad that South Australia is the first state whose parliament will be debating this measure.

Like all road safety initiatives, there are strident supporters and ardent critics. You only have to think about debates over traffic calming, speed humps, speed limits, compulsory bicycle helmets or changes to the graduated licensing system to know that this is an area of mixed opinions, and this measure will be no exception. Some might argue that amending the Road Traffic Act in this way might expose cyclists to more not less risk. The argument goes that, if many drivers were already allowing more than one metre, when you specify a minimum distance in legislation it might encourage them to drive closer to cyclists than they did previously. I do not accept this argument: I do not think it survives any analysis. Drivers who are already doing the right thing in terms of leaving a safe passing distance, and not overtaking cyclists unless it is safe to do so, will continue to behave in this manner.

The real targets of this law are those who have no idea what it is like to experience the road from a cyclist's perspective and who do not understand the impact their driving behaviour has on cyclists. There are also those who think that a few centimetres is plenty of space to leave a cyclist. These are the sorts of people whose behaviour is targeted and whose practices this bill seeks to modify. Without doubt, the beneficial impact of this bill will lie much more with education than it does with strict enforcement.

Then we have those who argue that the real action is separating cars and bicycles through separate infrastructure, rather than seeking to accommodate bicycles on a road network that was designed for cars. Of course, off-road solutions are the right response in some circumstances, but the reality is that every single destination that a cyclist might want to reach is on the public road network. Our houses, our schools, our workplaces, our shops and our sporting facilities are all on roads and streets, and that is how we get to them, whether it is in a car, on foot or by bicycle. All our roads and streets should be safe for cyclists, and our laws should also reflect the right of cyclists to be on the road, as well as their responsibilities to behave lawfully and safely.

One of the most common reactions to moves of this kind is for people to say that the distance of one metre is insufficient and that no specified distance should be legislated because one metre just will not hit the mark in many cases. That is the argument for leaving it up to the discretion of the motorist. Certainly, in many situations a passing distance of one metre might not be enough, but certainly legislating that as a minimum standard is a pretty good start.

This one-metre rule was not just plucked out of thin air: it has been chosen because it is practical and it is understandable. Most people have a pretty good sense of how far away is a metre. For most of us, it is from the tip of our outstretched arm to our nose—most of us understand this. Of course, if you do not have any understanding of distance, then you should not be driving because many of our road rules require an estimation of distance. For example, you are not allowed to drive for more than 50 metres in the new bus lanes on Currie Street. Most people have a rough idea of how far that is, and accordingly they do the right thing.

It is also worth noting that one metre is consistent with the guidance currently provided to South Australian drivers by the government, so all this bill is really doing is codifying in legislation the advice the government is already giving cyclists, and that will result in less ambiguity for both motorists and cyclists. If you go to the government website, sa.gov.au, and look up under the heading 'Transport, travel and motoring' and go to the subheading 'Cyclist road rules and safety' and then go down to 'Safety tips for drivers', there are six dot points, as follows:

Scan the road for cyclists.

When turning or entering an intersection look for cyclists and give way as you would any other vehicle.

Before opening your car door look behind and check blind spots for cyclists.

You must not drive, stop or park in a bicycle lane. You can cross a bicycle lane to turn left, enter private property or park in a parking lane.

Cyclists can legally ride two abreast. Be patient as you approach and overtake and overtake only when safe.

The last dot point is the important one:

Give cyclists plenty of room—a minimum of one metre clearance when overtaking.

I repeat, 'Give cyclists plenty of room—a minimum of one metre clearance when overtaking.' This is the advice the government is giving motorists at present. In fact, around Australia it is the advice that is being given by state and territory governments to 95 per cent of the population. Six out of eight jurisdictions promote the one-metre standard, including here in South Australia.

What is the situation overseas? I turn to the United States. In America, 21 states have now passed a three-feet law, and all but the youngest of us here would instantly recognise that is a yard, approximately one metre—just a few centimetres less. These states are: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin, as well as the District of Colombia. One state, Virginia, has a two-feet passing law, while Pennsylvania has a four-feet passing law.

What is interesting about the United States as a case study is that it is often held up to be the jurisdiction that has, at the heart of its political culture, hostility to regulation, particularly anything that could even vaguely be described as smacking of a nanny state. To this day, there are still many states in America where seatbelts are only compulsory in the front seat and where enforcement of seatbelt laws requires the commission of an additional offence, such as speeding.

This is also a nation where public health insurance is considered a breach of civil liberties, and the right to bear arms, despite its terrible social consequences, remains sacrosanct. Yet even in that kind of political environment, where there is so much hostility to state intervention in people's lives and behaviour, US legislators have seen the wisdom of this idea. They have stepped in and amended the traffic law to provide for mandated minimum overtaking distances. If legislators can do it in the US, it really should not be that hard here in South Australia.

More broadly, there is precedent outside America; for example, the Netherlands, France, and Nova Scotia in Canada all have one-metre minimum overtaking distances. My information is that the experience overseas has been positive. It is not about conviction rates, it is about cyclist safety. It is about educating road users and clarifying what is expected in relation to a safe passing distance.

In conclusion, this legislation is not the complete solution to making our roads safer—clearly, it is not. Those of us who were advocating for cycle safety in the eighties and nineties used to talk about the four Es: engineering, education, encouragement and enforcement. I think those principles still hold firm. This measure today is a combination of education and enforcement. All those things are necessary. A good start is to pass this bill. Another good start would be for the government to recommit to a cycling strategy for South Australia that added concrete actions and policies to the rhetoric.

I hope that all sides of politics will join the Greens and support this bill. After all, it is an opportunity for us to show national leadership on the issue of road safety. I also remind members that next year in May the prestigious Velo-city Global conference will be held here in Adelaide. It is the first time this global conference has come to Australia, and the cycling world's spotlight will be on our state and our city. Let's show them that South Australians take cycling and cycle safety seriously. I commend the bill to the house.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. K.J. Maher.

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