Page 2678 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 26 September 2007
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paddock with very few trees and with soft fences. Unfortunately, that is not available to us all.
The second-best way is for parents and other experienced adult drivers to make themselves available to give unlimited hours of practice to our young people. Unfortunately, in this society, where everyone is so busy, that is not available either. The third way—and this is why I will support the motion—failing the availability of those two ways is to provide driver education courses. I am not so sure about the merit of giving extra reward points, but if it increases the take-up by young drivers then this is a very good thing.
As the parent of a child who has very recently gained her P plates, and after paying many hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in driving lessons for her, I do share a lot of the concerns, but I note that the education she has been given does emphasise caution, and I have put my faith in that. I have anecdotal concerns about some of the driver education that is available. I would like to look into how we police somebody becoming a driving instructor. Amongst my daughter and her friends there have been examples of some very inappropriate remarks and actions by driving instructors. I am not referring to the bulk of them, and obviously not to the ones that we have stuck with, but this is something that needs to be addressed.
We are a city in which the gaining of a licence and the consequent gaining of a car is a rite of passage. We should aim at all times to reduce the need for young people to own cars. It is a very difficult thing for busy parents to do, when we are unavailable to drive our kids around all the time. We might find ourselves unwillingly supporting the child in the purchase of a car, whether that is with dollars or with advice. The first way to reduce the number of accidents is by reducing the use of cars.
I have a whole range of statistics here. I asked the government for a breakdown of fatalities and injuries in road accidents. While the statistics show that a number of pedestrians and cyclists have been killed, I would almost bet my boots that those people died by interacting with a car, and not in a very good way either. Car driving plays a very large part in accidents in the ACT. It is concerning that pedestrians have died or have been injured in the numbers that they have, and those are the issues that I will address here today.
I believe that we need better pedestrian and bicycle facilities in the ACT. I know that these are now on the increase, but we still have suburbs which do not have adequate paths where people can walk. Road safety matters do not relate exclusively to people behind the wheel of a car. People might recall that in August this year, after the tragic death of an elderly woman who was trying to cross Commonwealth Avenue, I raised the issue of the “walkability” of Canberra and how the area around our major tourist attractions in particular needs to be made more pedestrian friendly.
Visitors to our city do not know, when they leave Civic to walk to Parliament House, as many of them do, the distance involved. When I used to ride my bike from Yarralumla across Commonwealth Avenue bridge, I frequently answered questions like, “How far is it to go?” from exhausted tourist pedestrians. Unless Floriade or other major events are being held, there are no traffic lights and no potential to be able
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