Page 507 - Week 02 - Thursday, 22 February 1990
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drinking, taking drugs and speed that could have caused some of the most traumatic accidents we have seen. We did not get the chance to put this into practice, but I am quite sure the Liberal Alliance will take up another one of our policies and implement it, as it does not seem to have very many of its own.
I commend this Bill to the house, as it is one of the Labor Party policies, and I hope that it will go through without any trouble. As I read the Bill, it is no different from that which we had drawn up when we were in government.
MRS NOLAN (4.27): At the outset I would like to advise Mrs Grassby that this matter was first on the ATAC agenda back in 1984. So it has been around for some time, and I am sure has been discussed by many people. In fact, I believe that the only State that does not have this piece of legislation is Western Australia.
Very briefly, Mr Speaker, I am pleased to support this Bill to amend the Motor Traffic Act 1936 so that motorcycle permit licence applicants will be required to successfully complete a rider training course. I consider road safety to be a very important issue and anything that can be done to lessen road accidents is, I believe, a worthy initiative. I would like to provide some statistics that reflect the importance of this amendment Bill. The annual carnage on Australian roads involves more than 3,000 fatalities and 80,000 injured. A disproportionate number of these accident victims are motorcyclists and since 1985 we, in the ACT, have seen some 36 riders and pillion passengers die on our roads.
Researchers at the Bureau of Transport Economics in 1989 qualified the average cost to the community of a road fatality to be $560,000. Based on this very conservative financial and emotional cost estimate, the cost of motorcycle fatalities to the ACT community since 1985 has been in excess of $20m. These few statistics that I have provided give some indication of the potential for community gain through the implementation of road safety initiatives that can effectively reduce the road toll.
Compulsory pre-licence rider training is one of such road safety initiatives that can reduce the disproportionate number of ACT motorcycle fatalities and injuries and the consequent community cost. Young or inexperienced motorcyclists, as has already been stated by Mr Duby, are many times more likely to have an accident than a motor car driver or to be killed in a crash.
Debate interrupted.
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