Page 753 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 29 March 2006
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• operation Globin, which targeted offences such as burnouts and street racing—the police seized 52 vehicles in 2005 under this operation; and
• the road toll reduction traffic enforcement campaign, targeting unsafe driving practices, including the current campaign, conducted in conjunction with television advertising, enforcing the offence of using a mobile phone when driving.
During 2005 and continuing in 2006, traffic enforcement has been and will be a priority for ACT Policing resources. Dedicated resources from both traffic operations and districts have undertaken high-visibility patrols in the ACT, incorporating all areas of traffic enforcement, utilising speed measuring devises, such as laser and radar, along with high-volume random breath-testing. This has been undertaken in conjunction with a community awareness campaign through the local media.
The government and the police make use of media campaigns to raise the community’s awareness of the key actions which each of us, as road users, can take to limit the number of road crashes in the ACT. These are all critical contributing factors towards reducing the number of tragedies affecting ACT families through the loss of a loved one or the consequences of serious injury. While the government and the police continue to bring to the community’s attention the importance of road safety, we all need to accept the massive responsibility that comes with using our roads. I have said in this place before, and I say it again: it is about inattention and it is about personal responsibility and accepting personal responsibility.
When we are driving in a motorcar and have passengers, we are responsible for the lives of those passengers. Parents are responsible for the lives of the children in the back of the car. They are responsible to make sure that the kids are properly harnessed, that they are buckled in, and that the speed and the attention that the driver employs are a defensive approach to protecting the lives of those people in whose charge they rest themselves. Drivers have to accept the responsibility for those people who place their lives in their charge.
Further, all people on the road have a responsibility to other road users. Whether they are coming at them on the highway, whether they are pedestrians about to move off the pavement or whether they are cyclists in the cycle lane, there is a responsibility. It takes two cars to hit head-on.
People need to understand that, when they get the responsibility of a licence and they have got a massive piece of machinery under their control, they have to accept the responsibility for everybody around them—every single person around them. They need to make sure that their skills are up, they need to make sure that their attention is on the job, and they need to understand that they have a responsibility. Whether it is speed, alcohol, inattention, eating a hamburger, shouting at the kids, switching the radio off—whatever the contributing factor is—if somebody dies, it is somebody’s fault. People ought to have that concept rammed home to them. We need to accept this responsibility ourselves.
No bigger responsibility can we be given than accepting responsibility for the life of somebody else. We take parenting particularly seriously. We worry to death when our
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