Page 5335 - Week 14 - Thursday, 19 November 2009
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
The safety of all road users, I am sure we all agree, is something that we take very seriously. As Minister for Transport, I do take this matter seriously. In fact, one of the first things I did as transport minister late last year was to look into the ACT road safety strategy. It was at a meeting with Alan Evans from NRMA Motoring and Services that we decided to jointly chair a meeting of key stakeholders to see if there was serious interest in heading in the direction of a new approach to road safety in the ACT—the vision zero approach, which has been adopted quite successfully, most particularly, in Scandinavia.
The ACT has a very good road safety record in comparison to other parts of Australia, and indeed the world. This includes records involving vulnerable road users. The ACT has the benefit of an established and well-designed road system and a small, well-defined geographic area.
Despite this, there is no room for complacency. Each year about 14 people are killed and 500 people are injured on ACT roads. In the five years from 2004 to 2008, 76 people were killed. This year alone we have had 11 fatal road crashes, resulting in the deaths of 12 people.
This overall level of death and injury is a tragedy for, and a significant burden on, a great number of ACT families. The economic cost to the community of ACT road crashes has been conservatively estimated to amount to around $220 million a year.
As Minister for Transport, and indeed as Chief Minister, I remain very keen to raise the public profile of road safety issues and to engender a cultural change whereby all of us take our responsibilities for road safety to the next level. The current ACT road safety strategy is a higher level policies and principles document which outlines key strategic goals for road safety. It is supported by two two-year action plans which spell out specific activities to achieve the goals and objectives of the strategy.
The current strategy covers the four-year period 2007 to 2010. A new strategy will be needed for the period from 2011. The action plan for 2007-08 has been completed. The action plan for 2009-10 is in place, and this includes measures to assist in positioning the ACT for the next strategy.
The key road safety issues for the ACT, as outlined in the strategy and action plan, include addressing attitudes so the community shares the responsibility for road safety; the importance of moderating travel speeds to achieve a safer road system; the proportion of motorists who continue to drink and drive; lack of care and driver distraction; and vulnerable road users, including motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians.
As outlined in recent national road safety action plans, and as agreed by transport ministers, Australia’s approach to road safety improvement is guided by the safe system approach. A safe transport system requires responsible road user behaviour, but also makes allowance for human error and recognises that there are limits to the forces humans can withstand in a crash.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video