Page 3852 - Week 12 - Thursday, 24 October 2013
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
I certainly share Mr Coe’s interest in road safety. It is incredibly important. I will skip past some of the earlier, ideologically driven comments that he made and not take that bait. But when it comes to road safety, it is an ongoing challenge, and one in which my interest is piqued in many areas. Certainly, in starting the vulnerable road users inquiry, I think this is a valuable way to look at road safety for some people who are on the road and who are over-represented in statistics of both fatalities and injuries.
“Vulnerable road users” is commonly used to describe that group of motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians—those people who essentially are not protected by the hard shell of a vehicle. The current inquiry, I am very optimistic, will produce some good recommendations when it comes to infrastructure, etiquette or protocols, road safety campaigns and education. I certainly look forward to seeing the outcomes of that inquiry.
I know there have been some very good submissions. When I was out with the Motorcycle Riders Association with you, Madam Deputy Speaker—I know Mr Coe was there, as well as some of our federal members—a number of the people I spoke to were very aware of road safety. As motorcyclists often do not get seen, I was handed a sticker to put on my car, which I have not managed to do yet. I will have to check with the Clerk as to whether I am allowed to. But it is a campaign being run that is basically trying to overcome that common phrase that motorcyclists hear, “Sorry, mate, I didn’t see you,” which so often leads to either an accident or a near miss. I think it is a good concept, and one that is a good campaign for them to be running.
The other observation I wanted to make is that, for vulnerable road users, there are going to be a series of responses. Infrastructure will be one part of it. Mr Coe spoke quite a lot about the necessity of intersection upgrades and, in his view, the expansion of roads being an important road safety measure. But I think that education and attitude are a really important part of it. The Chief Minister made some similar comments.
Something I find very interesting is that people who are new to Canberra often comment on the driving culture of the city and the aggression that many Canberra drivers seem to demonstrate on the road. I think newcomers to town are pretty surprised by it, and they often come from bigger cities than Canberra. Perhaps I am dobbing him in, but Minister Barr told the story recently of an experiment he conducted where he decided to drive absolutely to the speed limit everywhere he went. He said he spent his entire time having lights flashed at him and people roaring past him, and he related the story as an interesting indication of just how quickly people tend to drive on Canberra roads.
I suspect this is a function of the fact that we actually have very good roads. If you compare it to driving in Sydney—we all go to Sydney at various times for various reasons—it is rather more difficult to speed in Sydney simply because of the state of the roads and the level of congestion on them. When you come to Canberra, so often the roads are high quality, have good surfaces and often are relatively free of traffic. This perhaps does contribute to some of the culture of driving and road use that we see in the territory.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video