Page 1318 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 9 April 2013
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upon the character of a member of this place, which would be highly disorderly. Either be relevant to the report of the public accounts committee on the inquiry into the Appropriation Bill 2012-2013 (No 2) or I will sit you down.
DR BOURKE: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I commend the report to the Assembly.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Traffic calming
Ministerial statement
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo—Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Housing, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs and Minister for Ageing) (10.35), by leave: I am pleased today to provide a statement to the Assembly about traffic calming, also known as local area traffic management.
Achieving safe speeds is an essential component of the safe system approach, as outlined in the national and ACT road safety strategies. It is also compatible with the vision zero strategy that the ACT has adopted, which emphasises placing a priority on human life and health.
A safe transport system requires responsible road user behaviour, but it also makes allowance for human error and recognises that there are limits to the forces that humans can withstand in a crash.
An essential element of the safe system and vision zero approach is to design roads and vehicles to reduce the risk of crashes and to reduce the harm to people if a crash does happen. Speed management is also a critical factor in limiting the impact energy of crashes.
This is an important factor for improving safety for vulnerable road users, a term that refers to road users that are not protected by a hard shell, for example pedestrians—with older Canberrans and children as particularly notable categories—as well as pedal cyclists and motorcyclists. They are at the most risk of injury and death in a collision with a larger, heavier vehicle such as a car.
Local area traffic management schemes are a proven road safety treatment to address speeding, safety and amenity issues in residential areas. There is considerable community and political interest in road safety issues, including local area traffic management works.
It is timely to provide the Assembly with further details of progress the government is making—through Roads ACT in the Territory and Municipal Services Directorate—with these local area traffic management studies.
Roads ACT receives many inquiries from members of the public raising traffic concerns in their streets. As TAMS minister, I regularly receive many requests to
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