Page 1813 - Week 06 - Thursday, 5 June 2014
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There is a note of hope that we heard during the hearing, and that was from Nick Clarke, the CEO of ANCAP, which is the crash safety rating program that runs across Australia. It has sister operations in other countries around the world. Mr Clarke said to the committee that we should be careful about making arrangements, especially in relation to road furniture and engineering changes, because technology in motor vehicles is changing so quickly that he believes in the not-too-distant future collisions will be completely avoidable, and highlighted that the main reason for vehicle collisions is driver error. So if this technology goes ahead as he indicates, there will be far fewer collisions and perhaps no more actual death by motor vehicle accidents.
In conclusion, I would like to thank the other members of the committee—Mr Alistair Coe, the deputy chair, Dr Bourke MLA and Andrew Wall—for their assistance during this inquiry. A special thanks also and a vote of good luck to our committee secretary, Margie Morrison, in her new role in the federal parliament. We will miss her but we do wish her well. I commend the report to the Assembly.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (10.09): I, too, commend the report of the Standing Committee on Planning, Environment and Territory and Municipal Services inquiry into vulnerable road users to the Assembly. I would like to extend my thanks to both the committee members and Margie Morrison, who was the committee secretary for the vast majority of the time of this inquiry. As we heard from Mr Gentleman just then, she is moving up to the hill to take up a role with the committee office there. We wish her all the very best with that exciting move.
The issue of vulnerable road users is, of course, a very important issue for all of us. It is no wonder why we had a pretty high level of interest by way of submissions and witnesses who were keen to pass on their views to the committee and, through the committee, to the Assembly.
I commend the recommendations to the Assembly and would like to hone in on just one in particular that I think warrants particular attention—that is, recommendation 24, which reads:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government conduct a review of the speed limit hierarchy across all roads in the ACT.
I think we do have a very complex set of speed limits across the territory. It can lead to a perception of entrapment when the speed limit on a road could plausibly be 60, 70 or 80 while in fact it is 50. There are many roads across Canberra where this applies. I think it is quite unfair to motorists, and indeed to vulnerable road users, when there is considerable uncertainty about what a speed limit could or should be.
Finally, I would like to say that I found it disappointing that, during the course of this inquiry, the government seemed to make several significant policy changes on this very subject, which brings into question the reason for setting up this inquiry in the first place. Sure, the business of government does continue, but with this inquiry both Minister Corbell and Minister Rattenbury said, “We need these recommendations. We need to hear what the community has to say.” During the course of this inquiry, the
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