Page 346 - Week 01 - Thursday, 9 December 2004
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Motor vehicles—P-plate drivers
(Question No 61)
Mr Pratt asked the Minister for Urban Services, upon notice, on 9 December 2004:
(1) On what advice or evidence was the decision based to rule out any plans to tighten restrictions on Canberra’s P-plate drivers and disallow them from driving powerful vehicles like V8s;
(2) What, if any, documentation was given to you to base your decision regarding P-platers and the use of powerful vehicles;
(3) What is the Government’s position or decision on other restrictions on P platers such as (a) number of passengers allowed in the vehicle and (b) curfews.
Mr Hargreaves: The answer to the member’s question is as follows:
(1) While the ACT Government has not ruled out any changes to the restrictions on people holding an ACT provisional licence, there are currently no proposals to change the existing regime. The Government will assess the outcome of the proposed driver training trial announced at the recent Young Driver Safety Forum and to be conducted by the NSW and Victorian Governments.
The outcome of the NSW Government options paper on improving safety for young drivers will also be examined to see if any of the proposals merit consideration in the ACT, including the proposed introduction of bans prohibiting probational drivers from driving high performance vehicles. It should be noted that this initiative will not be introduced in NSW until the necessary major changes to the driver licence and vehicle registration processes and computer systems have been undertaken.
(2) As no decision to make any changes regarding P-platers has been made, there is no documentation meeting this description.
(3) The NRMA-ACT Road Safety Trust recently commissioned research examining whether there would be any benefit associated with passenger restrictions for novice drivers. The results of this research are not expected until early 2005.
I have received advice that curfews would be problematic in the ACT given the necessarily reduced levels of public transport during curfew periods and lack of support from the community. Curfews would be unlikely to significantly impact on crash rates as the vast majority of crashes occur on weekdays between 6am and 8pm.
Emergency services—single response units
(Question No 62)
Mr Pratt asked the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, upon notice, on 9 December 2004:
(1) On how many occasions in (a) 2002-03, (b) 2003-04 and (c) to date in 2004-05 have single response units (SRU) been despatched in the ACT;
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