Page 352 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 20 February 1990
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load that is well in excess of the weight for which it is designed. It is not hard to imagine that the braking system for a truck might be unable to cope with a load that is far beyond that for which it was designed. As I am sure members are aware, the results of heavy vehicle accidents, such as we have seen recently on the roads, can be quite traumatic. We would not like to see any of those sorts of accidents in the wonderful Territory in which we live.
The second reason for a weight limit for heavy vehicles is to do with the damage that they do to our road system. Quite simply, Mr Speaker, the community cannot afford to pay for constant repairs to roads which do not last as long as they should because overloaded vehicles cause too much damage. Research shows that a 20 per cent excess load on a heavy vehicle axle will result in a 100 per cent increase in the damage caused to the road. That is enough to reduce the expected life of a new road from 20 years to 10 years. Members may be surprised to learn of the estimate that we have about $2,500m worth of roads in the ACT. This is a big investment that we need to protect. As we now have self-government and we have defined the money for these roads, we need to protect that investment.
Controlling the load of heavy vehicles should help to minimise future increases to registration charges for trucks and other road users. This, too, is important. These people need to earn a living.
Apart from controlling weights, this Bill is also designed to control the dimensions of a vehicle. As members can imagine, the size of heavy vehicles can cause problems for other road users or be difficult to manage on some of our narrow bridges, the repair of which would cost us a lot of money.
Perhaps the final point which should be made about the need for this Bill is that the ACT has been the only part of Australia without a law controlling vehicle loads and sizes. Like so many other matters, it has taken the introduction of self-government - I hope Mr Duby is listening, seeing that he was so against self-government - to enable sufficient priority to be given to these issues which are important to those of us who live in the ACT but maybe not to anyone else in Australia.
This Bill will bring the ACT into line with the other States and the Northern Territory. The Bill provides for size limits but gives the Minister power to determine limits on weight. In this respect it is important to note that the proposed weight limits are those adopted by the Australian Transport Advisory Council. That is very important because other States have not done this. These limits are substantially higher than those in other States, but we have taken this on because this is one of the things that the Prime Minister has been asking all States to do. We have made a move, and the other States are expected, over time, to move their limits closer to ours.
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