Page 357 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 20 February 1990
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by avoiding unnecessary expenditure and improving the safety of ACT roads. Primarily because the ACT has had no restrictions, there are many vehicles currently carrying loads which exceed design limits for our roads. This results in high maintenance costs and necessitates much earlier capital expenditure on road construction.
A road pavement is designed to last for a certain period before it reaches an unserviceable condition and has to be replaced. The standard of design takes into account the weight and quantity of vehicles that will use the road. A major new road transport link, such as the Eastern Parkway, could normally be expected to last some 25 years in a serviceable condition. However, with overloading this period could be reduced to as little as seven or eight years, so it would have to be replaced much sooner. Therefore it is clear that the principal benefit of preventing overloading of vehicles is to reduce the need to provide major capital expenditure many years earlier than would otherwise be necessary.
Across the whole of the ACT's road transport infrastructure, expenditure reduction in the longer term will amount to many millions of dollars. Any increased transport costs to the building industry are estimated to be marginal in terms of total costs. In the longer term, restructuring and cheaper, less powerful vehicles should temper effects on transport costs, and the ACT community as a whole should no longer have to bear the costs of road damage caused by overloaded vehicles.
I turn to the road safety implications of this legislation. It is apparent that other road users face potential risks from vehicles carrying excess loads; vehicle control and braking can be impaired and road surfaces can be damaged. At a time when there is an increasingly national focus on the safety of heavy freight vehicles and passenger buses, it is important that the ACT moves to introduce appropriate measures for the Territory's transport operations. A range of initiatives is currently being considered by Federal, State and Territory transport Ministers, and these will be discussed further at the Australian Transport Advisory Council meeting in March this year. I believe that these initiatives add impetus to the need to implement a measure as fundamental as dimensions and mass limits.
Finally, I am encouraged by the response of those in the heavy vehicle industry, who will be most affected by this Bill. There is general recognition that these new limits are necessary and reasonable. Contrary to what Mrs Grassby said, Mr Duby tells me that there has been a great deal of consultation in relation to these Bills. I believe that an amendment aimed at tightening up the method of enforcement is to be moved. In no way does it vary the thrust or intent of the Bills, and we on the Government side will support that amendment.
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