Page 3924 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 1 December 2021
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involving alcohol and drugs, particularly where people are using alternatives to motor vehicles.
It is currently an offence to operate a bicycle, personal mobility device—like an e-scooter, an animal or animal-drawn vehicle—while under the influence of alcohol or drugs on a road. However, as we have seen more people take up these alternative modes of transport, particularly e-scooters, it has become clear that there is still a gap in our legislation which needs to be closed.
There is currently no offence for when this unsafe behaviour occurs on a road-related area, such as a footpath or nature strip. This type of behaviour poses a risk of injury to other people using road-related areas and poses a risk of injury to personal mobility device riders who may need to seek costly medical treatment.
The bill establishes a new offence for operating an alternative transport mode while under the influence of alcohol or drugs on a road-related area, to such an extent as to be incapable of having proper control of the device or animal. The new offence for road-related areas will have a maximum penalty of 20 penalty units. Unlike some other drink-driving offences, it will not carry any imprisonment term or come with mandated licence disqualification requirements. This is because you do not currently need to be licensed to ride an e-scooter, bike or other forms of transport to which this part of the legislation would apply.
This new offence makes it clear that it is not acceptable to have a night of heavy drinking, jump on a scooter and risk your own safety or that of others. This bill will send a strong message to the Canberra community about the importance of being safe and in control while operating any kind of transport device. It is a fair approach which responds to some emerging risky behaviour that we have seen in Canberra since the launch of the e-scooter scheme.
This bill also updates the existing penalties for using an alternative transport mode under the influence of alcohol or drugs while on a road, so that these align with the penalties for doing so in a motor vehicle. At the moment the maximum court fine for riding a bike or e-scooter under the influence of alcohol or drugs on a road is significantly higher than for driving a car under the influence. This is an inconsistency resulting from ad hoc amendments to the law from over two decades ago, and we do not think there is a good rationale for it. This bill will harmonise the penalties for both types of offences to a maximum 30 penalty units, with a maximum term of six months imprisonment for first offenders and a maximum of 12 months imprisonment for repeat offenders.
The bill has been drafted to ensure that riders of personal mobility devices, bicycles, animals and animal-drawn vehicles are not considered driving or riding their vehicle while pushing, carrying or otherwise controlling the vehicle while dismounted. This ensures that people doing the right thing by choosing not to ride or drive alternative transport modes while under the influence of alcohol or a drug are not captured by the offence.
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