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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (31 August) . . Page.. 2739 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

safer and all those states cannot be wrong. So at least he is consistent in his inconsistency.

But, Mr Speaker, where do the injuries and the deaths occur on our roads, and shouldn't we be targeting the most dangerous areas where the most trauma occurs? I asked my department to look at the last two years and further break down our injury crash data to street type. It paints an interesting picture. What we do know now is that more than 60 per cent of our injuries and fatal accidents occur on major arterials with mostly 80 kilometres or higher speeds.

Our speed camera program is targeting speed and it is slowing motorists down. How do we know that? Because after the first six months of operation, rather than just opinion, we have the data that says that at the speed camera sites there has been a 26 per cent reduction in the amount of speeding as well as a 15 per cent reduction in general across Canberra.

So, with the community debate on residential streets, I then wanted to break the data down further. I had the figures of the number of people injured or killed in crashes in the ACT broken down into three categories. The first is local streets. They are the wide residential streets in your street directory. Then there are the distributor roads, which are the yellow, main residential streets in the street directory. Then there are the arterial roads, which are the main roads, coloured yellow and with a red line through them, in the street directory, for those here who need colour coordination.

What did this show, Mr Speaker? It showed that last year, in 1999, there were 18 people killed on our roads, and all but two of those deaths occurred on arterial roads. There were also some 745 people injured. The total percentage of casualties on the local roads was 16.5 per cent. The percentage of casualties on the distributor roads, the main residential roads, was 19.5 per cent. The percentage of casualties on arterial roads was 64 per cent.

Mr Corbell: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is the Minister for Urban Services seriously suggesting that he does not want to achieve a 16.5 per cent reduction in injuries as a result of reducing the speed limit on local roads to 50 kilometres an hour? What an absurd suggestion. That is exactly what you are saying-that you do not want to achieve a 15 per cent reduction in casualties.

MR SMYTH: We always jump when we are stung, Mr Speaker, and Mr Corbell stings the easiest.

MR SPEAKER: Order! There is only one person speaking at the moment and that is the minister.

MR SMYTH: Mr Speaker, the results for 1998 were similar, 15.7 per cent on the local streets, 22.3 per cent of accidents on major arterial red streets, and 62 per cent on the arterials. So that shows that by far-

Mr Corbell: You don't want to achieve a 16 per cent reduction? Is that what you are saying? You are happy with the level of accidents?

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