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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-05-26 Daily Xml
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Motions

National Road Safety Week

The Hon. C. BONAROS (16:08): I move:

That this council—

1. Notes National Road Safety Week was hosted in Adelaide this year from 16 to 13 May;

2. Expresses its deepest condolences to the families, friends and loved ones of the 977 people who lost their lives on South Australian roads between 2001 and 2020;

3. Notes a further 7,391 people suffered serious injuries;

4. Also notes 576 of the 977 lives lost were on South Australian regional roads;

5. Further expresses its deepest condolences to the families, friends and loved ones of the 43 people killed on our roads so far this year;

6. Calls upon the state government to introduce tougher laws and penalties targeting dangerous drivers and high-risk behaviour, including drug driving and driving whilst disqualified, as a matter of urgency; and

7. Calls upon the state and federal governments to take immediate action to improve the condition and safety of our regional roads.

I rise to speak on this motion highlighting National Road Safety Week, hosted in Adelaide from 16 May, and in doing so I commend the work of everyone involved, including the MFS, the RAA, SAPOL and other ambassadors from the Think! Road Safety partnerships. I would like to particularly acknowledge the great work of the RAA in its pursuit of safer roads, safer vehicles and safer drivers. I do not know about others, but I know that I attribute much of the information I rely on in these discussions to the RAA because of the important role they play, not just for their members but for all of us and all road users when it comes to road safety-related matters.

I am pleased to say that, just this morning, I had the opportunity to meet with Mr Charles Mountain and his group—Emily, Paula, David and Samuel—to speak about some of the key road safety concerns that I have and that were part of this campaign. I am grateful for their ongoing research and advocacy for the benefit of all South Australians, and I am grateful to be able to brief them on the various bits of legislation that we have been working on in this place.

The eight-day campaign began with a very powerful and moving visual display at Elder Park, with 977 empty chairs, each one representing a life lost on South Australian roads between 2011 and 2020. I happened to be going past Elder Park that day and saw the chairs. There was no doubt that it was a sobering sight. It was also a testament to all those involved in setting up these events in relation to the great advocacy work they do. I know that if I stopped, if they gained my attention on that day, then certainly the same could have been said for others who were passing Elder Park. We know that the work of these groups is absolutely critical. We know that they need to continuously think outside the box to capture our attention. We know that all of this requires a constant effort to keep us engaged and alert.

It is hard to fathom the absolute grief behind each and every one of those empty seats. They represented 977 men, women and children who did not return home to their loved ones. I spoke last year in this place, following the tragic death of Chief Superintendent Joanne Shanahan, which was something that touched all of us very deeply, and that is just one person amongst the 977 who have been killed on our roads. Of course, there are many more who died on our roads who do not make the headlines on our front pages and whom we are not familiar with, personally or otherwise.

There were powerful messages flashed on big screens around Elder Park, such as: 'We miss you every day,' and, 'As each year passes, we wonder what you would have been doing and what a wonderful father you would have been.' Another was: 'One weekend our family was coming together for your wedding and the next weekend for your funeral.' There was also this simple yet powerful statement: 'The gap left in our family will never heal.'

Over the same decade, a further 7,391 people suffered injuries as a result of road crashes. A serious injury could be a brain injury, paralysis, amputation or a loss of sight, for example. This year, 2021, 43 more lives have been lost on our roads. That is 43 more empty chairs. Nationally, about 1,200 people die on Australian roads each year and a further 44,000 people are seriously injured. Males are consistently over-represented in the tolls. Nationally, traffic injury is the biggest cause of death of Australian children under 15 years and the second biggest cause of death for all Australians aged 15 to 24.

This year in South Australia, 35 males have already died on our roads, compared to eight females. The biggest contributors, according to SAPOL, are the fatal five: drink and drug driving, speeding, not wearing a seatbelt, dangerous road use and distraction. SAPOL says that distraction has contributed to 56 per cent of the lives lost on our roads this year.

It is fair to say that we are all at our wits' end at the senseless loss of lives as a result of road crashes. SAPOL and our first responders, who see the carnage on our roads firsthand, are absolutely at their wits' end, and I think many of us are asking what can be done to prevent more needless and tragic deaths on our roads. We have heard whisperings of impending double demerits for not wearing a seatbelt. I am not sure whether we are likely to see that or not, but I do know that statistics tell us that the seatbelt cohort represented 28 per cent of last year's road toll.

Then there is other high-risk behaviour which also endangers others. Surely, one would think that we should be focusing on those higher categories of offending. If you text and drive, you are not only risking those words being your last but you are risking the lives of everyone around you. Hoon driving, drink-driving and drug driving, they are a whole other level of dangerous behaviour. It is encouraging to hear the government has introduced a bill this week increasing penalties for hoon drivers. I have not seen the bill itself to comment any further on the specifics, but it sounds like we might be headed in the right direction. That is indeed encouraging.

I also look forward to the government introducing tough new penalties for drug driving, as was committed in this place during the transport bill debate. Twenty-two per cent of drivers and riders killed in South Australia in 2020 tested positive to drugs. Research conducted by Monash University Accident Research Centre for the Australian government's Office of Road Safety found that 37 per cent of all drivers and motorbike riders who died on Australian roads in 2017 had illicit drugs in their system.

The figures that we have been provided with, especially very recently, are staggering. Each and every day when we drive on, walk near or cycle on our roads, we run the gauntlet of sharing the road with drivers who are drugged up to their eyeballs. Stamping out this potentially deadly driving has to be the number one priority for all of us. Parents are being caught driving with drugs in their system, dropping off their kids at school. Every time we have a long weekend, every time we have a public holiday, every time there is a new start to the school term, we see these statistics provided to us by SAPOL, and they are absolutely alarming.

The question we have to ask is: what is it going to take? Is it going to take yet another tragedy because, as I said, we had 977 chairs at Elder Park and a further 43 lives lost this year. The numbers are just staggering. Consultation on the 2021-2030 draft National Road Safety Strategy has just closed. It sets a 10-year target of a 50 per cent reduction in fatalities and a 30 per cent reduction in serious injuries. I think it is incumbent on all of us to think about how we intend to reach these targets as a collective. This is not just about the government or the opposition or the crossbench. I think we are all duty-bound when it comes to reaching these targets.

The strategy identified nine priority areas, including risky road use, which encompasses drug driving. Investment in our regional roads was also highlighted as a key priority, as it rightly should be. Of the 977 lives lost on our roads over the past decade, 576 of those were on country roads, or nearly 60 per cent of all road fatalities. One final mention goes to the over-representation of motorbike riders in our road fatalities. There have been nine deaths so far this year—that is, nine out of the 43 that I mentioned, or about 20 per cent. If you consider that motorbikes only make up about 4 per cent of road users, it is overwhelmingly disproportionate.

Last year, 19 motorbike riders lost their lives and 116 were seriously injured on our roads. I recently met with the mother of one of those young riders included in last year's statistics, a teenager named Harry, who I spoke about in this place recently. She was overwhelmed because she learned in the aftermath of the passing of her son that he was able to get his learner's permit for his motorbike after riding for just 10 hours in a car park under controlled conditions at 25 kilometres per hour. From there, he went directly onto our roads. There was no on-road component, no night-time or varied road conditions—just the bare minimum, 10 hours in a car park.

It is worth highlighting again that, if you are one of these riders, there is no requirement for you to have a driver's licence and undergo the same conditions that you would undergo in terms of gaining a motor vehicle driver's licence, not at all on par with learning to drive a car. As we know, a motorbike is not as forgiving as a car. I think it is fair to say that, if I did not know that every motorbike rider does not have that basic level of experience on the road, then it is fair to say that a whole lot of other road users also do not know that the motorbike rider next to them on the road may have as little as 10 hours of experience in a car park under controlled conditions at just 25 kilometres per hour.

As I have said in this place, I do not think it is widely known how inadequate the requirements are to get a learner's motorbike licence in South Australia, because, if you stop and think about it, it makes absolutely no sense. I am delighted that the government has taken on board the concerns we have raised in this place and committed to a regulatory regime aimed specifically at motorbike riders, and we will certainly hold them to their word in relation to that.

There is no question that we have made substantial gains in reducing lives lost and serious injuries on our roads compared with previous decades—that is a given. However, despite those gains, we know that a lot more needs to be done. We all have a role to play in this space, as legislators and as road users. I know from the time I have invested in this space, speaking to SAPOL, to the RAA, to other stakeholder groups and also to grieving families, that there is a lot more we can do and there is a lot more that we must do.

My plea to all members of parliament across the political spectrum is that we do this as a collective. This is one issue that does not need political flourish, it just needs a little bit of political will amongst all of us. So let us provide the appropriate frameworks, in line with expert advice from bodies like CASR, RAA, SAPOL and other ambassadors, people who deal with this day in and day out and are in the know, because the more we do the more they can do to educate our road users appropriately and prevent needless and senseless deaths on our roads.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. D.G.E. Hood.

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