Page 1870 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 2 May 2012
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I spoke to Leanne and her family. We should not underestimate just how distressing some of these accidents can be for people, particularly when there are children involved. Fortunately, I am not aware that anyone has been in fatalities on this stretch of this road. It is up to us to do all we can to make sure there never are any fatalities. But even when there are not fatalities, there is a cost to these accidents. There can be serious injuries; there can be minor injuries; there can be trauma. It is important that we deal with these black spots. This clearly, in my opinion, is a black spot.
Another local resident, Dee Gibbon, noted that she had personally seen four accidents over the last six months. She had this to say about the street:
I actually feel really unsafe driving along here—especially with kids in the car … I don’t think people are dying but it’s just causing enormous issues.
This is how the Chronicle characterises Coyne Street:
An inspection of what appears to be a relatively benign bend in the road reveals the remnants of past carnage.
Missing and contorted signage and trees taken out are the first indicators that something along the road is wrong, but it’s only after talking to locals that the true extent of the problem becomes clear.
When we had heavy rainfall last November and police had to attend to car accidents, Coyne Street was one of the handful of streets that had collisions.
We have spoken to local residents about this street. They have raised serious worries about their safety. This motion seeks to address their concerns before we see further collisions and, God forbid, a fatality.
This government’s track record on maintaining our roads has not been a good one. We could go into some detail on that, but I am just keen to see this motion get up. The people of Tuggeranong, like all people in Canberra, deserve to have their local concerns taken care of. Safety on our roads has to be very high on the list of local concerns. We in the Canberra Liberals believe that a good local government, an ACT government, should be focusing on these local issues—listening to the community, consulting with the community and addressing these issues. That is something we would like to do in government, but here we can do it today by directing the government to get on with it and go down the process of traffic calming measures.
I understand that, with some amendments, there will be support for this motion. I am pleased about that. It will be an important win for residents in the area. It will be an important win for people who use this regularly. We know that there are schools in the area, some of which my kids attend. They are at Holy Family. Fadden primary is around the corner. And there are many people using this for their daily commute.
We as an Assembly have an obligation to do all we can to make our roads safer. This road has clearly been identified as having too many accidents. I am very hopeful, and I will be very pleased if the Assembly passes this motion today—that we give a very
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