Page 940 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 17 June 1992
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He mentioned that he might bring signs into the ACT. Perhaps there might be some indication from Mr Connolly as to whether he will also bring in some sort of a public education program so that people will know that they are coming, and exactly what they are for.
MS SZUTY (12.12): Madam Speaker, I rise to speak against the amendment before the Assembly relating to driving in the left-hand lane as I feel, as Mr Connolly does, that this represents a classic case of legislating instead of educating. When Mr Westende's amendment Bill was introduced into the Assembly I canvassed opinions from a range of road user groups. The majority stated that in Canberra there would only be one road, the Tuggeranong Parkway, which is long enough and has enough uninterrupted sections to make policing such a law practical. One other expressway, the Eastern Parkway, was considered by the Road Safety Council's engineering adviser as being unsuitable as it had recently had the speed limit reduced after a spate of accidents.
In the Tuggeranong Valley an 80 kilometres per hour speed limit applies to both Drakeford Drive, which is three lanes wide and governed by traffic lights, and Sulwood Drive, which is one lane each way, curved, with a relatively poor surface and dirt verges. In Belconnen there are the examples of the Barton Highway, which is narrow and winding, and Belconnen Way, which is wide and controlled by traffic lights. Other factors to be considered here include the number of entrance and exit points to and from the roads in question, and other traffic. For example, there is a bus stop on Yamba Drive outside the Woden Valley Hospital which would make a "keep to the left" rule inadvisable on that section of the road. Many other examples abound, and I feel that it would be difficult to police any legislation which tried to enforce a blanket rule regardless of the physical characteristics of the road. As I have pointed out, the majority opinion from the organisations I consulted was that there was only one road in the ACT where the rule could be effectively policed.
In addition, the point was made that, by forcing most drivers into the left-hand lane, road regulators are effectively reducing the capacity of the roadway - another point that Mr Connolly made. If, for example, traffic approaches a traffic light controlled intersection, and there are plenty of these on 80 kilometres per hour roads in Canberra, the majority of the vehicles will end up in the left-hand lane. When a red light changes to green, the volume of traffic that will get through before the next change will be greatly reduced. So, from an engineering point of view, our roads are not designed for traffic to be regulated into one lane.
What I feel, and what my inquiries have substantiated, is that driver education is the most important consideration in such issues. The basic rule of driving, after all, is to consider the other traffic on the road. It is currently an offence to drive in a manner which hinders the other vehicles on the road, and if a driver were defending his or her right to drive in a lane to the great disadvantage of all other traffic, a police officer could in theory book him or her. But how many times have we witnessed a traffic infringement - red-light running, not looking before entering roundabouts and other such things - and wished that there had been a police officer around? The fact is that there are not now, nor will there ever be, enough police on the roads to stop people infringing against the road rules, whether they are laws or just the basic rules of good driving.
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