Page 1261 - Week 05 - Thursday, 25 June 1992
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The third matter dealt with by these amendments is the provisions of the Act relating to child restraints. The Motor Traffic Act was amended in October 1990 to require that child restraints be fitted and used for children under one year of age. This amendment was made to take account of advances in the design of child restraints for children under one year of age. The 1990 amendment gave rise to an anomaly in the Act, however. While there is now a requirement to provide a child restraint and use that restraint for a child under the age of one, there is no requirement to provide a suitable child restraint for children who are one year old but under eight years old. There is only a requirement to use a child restraint for children aged between one and eight if a suitable restraint does happen to be fitted. Clearly, this is not acceptable from a safety viewpoint. The Bill corrects this anomaly by providing that a suitable child restraint must be provided for children between the ages of one and eight. The opportunity has also been taken to redraft what is a very complex section of the Act so that the provision dealing with seat belts and child restraints for children and young persons is much easier to understand.
The final amendment effected by the Bill is the introduction of a prohibition upon the sale, purchase or use of radar detectors and jammers. This amendment gives effect to the 1989 agreement of the Australian Transport Advisory Council that radar detectors and jammers be banned throughout Australia. Legislation giving effect to that decision has since been enacted in Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania, South Australia and Queensland. Western Australia and the Northern Territory are also in the process of introducing similar legislation. Radar detectors and radar jammers are currently freely available in the ACT and are used to prevent the effective use of a radar speed measuring device by either jamming the signal or detecting when such a device is being used by police, thereby allowing a motorist using a detector time to reduce his or her speed before he or she may be identified by the police as speeding.
Speed and alcohol have been identified as the two greatest threats to road safety and the Australian Transport Advisory Council has undertaken to target these problems in particular. Although significant progress has been made in reducing the road toll over the past 20 years, road accidents remain a leading cause of death and are of enormous cost to the Australian community - some $6 billion annually in health insurance, lost productivity, insurance costs generally and other costs. This figure, of course, takes no account of the pain, grief and suffering endured by victims and their loved ones.
This Government has already implemented important changes to the legislation to improve road safety in the Territory. Late last year we substantially increased the penalties for speeding offences in the ACT in an attempt to deter motorists from driving with excessive speed. Speeding is a significant problem in the Territory, with some 75 per cent of the 28,000 traffic infringement notices issued each year being for speeding offences. Prohibiting the sale, purchase or use of radar detectors and jammers is another measure which will assist in the enforcement of safe speed limits upon the Territory roads.
The Australian Federal Police will be conducting a publicity campaign to advise motorists concerning the introduction of this ban upon the use of radar detectors and radar jammers. The Bill provides for a one-month delay in commencing the amendments in relation to the ban, to enable ample time for the police media campaign alerting motorists to the commencement of the new legislation. This
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