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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (4 September) . . Page.. 3034 ..

MS HORODNY (continuing):

Even when they are running, the only check that is made is a visual inspection of whether the exhaust smoke is dirty or not. This is not an adequate test of whether the vehicle is running at optimum levels. We are not sure that this situation will necessarily improve much with moving to private inspections, because the emission testing equipment really should be used more widely. We would like to ensure that those private testers have that testing equipment as well.

MR KAINE (Minister for Urban Services) (10.39), in reply: I just want to make a few comments about the debate so far. I am pleased that Mr Moore will support this legislation, because I believe that it is eminently sensible. He quoted some statistics, which I can confirm. For example, he said that the percentage of fatal accidents caused by the condition of the vehicle is very small. In fact, it is 3 per cent. Ninety-five per cent of vehicle crashes are caused by drivers, for one reason or another; only 3 per cent occur as a result of the condition of the vehicle; and approximately half of that 3 per cent are the result of tyre defects.

Mr Whitecross criticises the Victorian system and says that we are going to get the same sort of system. First of all, we are not going to get the same sort of system. But, more importantly, although he criticises it, it is interesting that Victoria, which has not required annual vehicle inspections for many years, continues to have a better road safety record than New South Wales, which does. So, he can knock the system and talk about all the perceived defects; but, in fact, the road safety record in Victoria is better than it is in New South Wales, despite his allegations.

The major weakness of compulsory inspections is one that some of us are very familiar with; that is, the technical condition of a vehicle may be improved for a very short period of time when it has to be presented for an annual inspection and then ignored for the rest of the year. I think that there would be very few of us who do not know people who, in the old days, borrowed tyres off their mate's car to get theirs through registration and then they went back home, took the tyres off, put their own tyres back on and continued to drive their car for a year. Yet some people think that the annual inspection guarantees the safety of their motor vehicle. It does not.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, the system that we are proposing is one which I believe is a good one. It ensures that vehicles are safe when they first come into the ACT and when they are bought and sold. If you want to buy one or if you want to sell one, you have to make sure that it has had a roadworthiness check. In between times, there are plenty of checks to make sure that the vehicle remains in good condition. Our target is 50,000 random vehicle inspections each year. That is over a quarter of the total ACT fleet.

The inspectors obviously check the tyres. Since tyres are a very significant element in the 3 per cent of fatal car crashes, it is just as well that they do. But they do more than that. They check the general condition of the vehicle and, if they think there is something wrong with it, they leave a little sticker on it. If they leave a red one on it, you had better not try driving it away from where it is. You have to present it for a full inspection before you can drive that vehicle. If you inspect 50 vehicles a year and you defect the ones that need a more rigid inspection, then you are doing a pretty good job. On top of that 50,000, there will be about 40,000 vehicles each year that will still go through the full

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