Page 1645 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 3 June 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
an hour on a 110-kilometre-an-hour highway—not least of all because the pedestrian zone is likely to have a large amount of pedestrian movements. Pedestrians are, of course, highly susceptible to injury or death if they are hit by a motor vehicle.
To my mind, it does not make sense to say that the aggravating factor only kicks in when a driver is more than 45 kilometres an hour over the speed limit. What if, for example, the driver is driving dangerously, recklessly or furiously at 80 kilometres an hour through a 40-kilometre-an-hour speed zone? That is dangerous driving at double the speed limit in an area where children can be expected to be present. Under Mr Hanson’s suggested amendment, this would not be an aggravating factor. The 30 per cent above the limit definition captures this behaviour as an aggravating factor, and I think that is appropriate.
I was interested in the example that Mr Hanson cited around the 40-kilometre-an-hour school zone where he said, “Well, you might be doing 52 as you enter the school zone.” I must say, there was an almost implicit condoning of that behaviour, which I am somewhat surprised by. I think that one should enter a 40-kilometre-an-hour speed zone at the appropriate speed limit, because they are there for a clear reason. If a driver makes a mistake and they do not slow down in time, there are penalties in place for that, and that is the way it works. Drivers will do that at times, but then there are consequences for that. I think something like a school zone requires particular vigilance.
Another aggravating factor is that the person was driving in a way that put at risk the safety of a vulnerable road user. The legislation defines vulnerable road users, essentially, as road users that are not protected by a hard metal shell, as drivers of cars or trucks are. Vulnerable road users include pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, horse riders and all other variations of unprotected road users, such as skateboard riders, users of wheelchairs or road workers.
I want to highlight that the introduction of a vulnerable road user definition is a very important addition to the ACT’s road transport legislation. In fact, it is the first time it has been defined in any legislation in Australia. For several years it has been used by various overseas jurisdictions. It is widely used in Europe and is included in several US state laws.
First of all, the definition formally recognises that vulnerable road users are a unique group of road users that have unique needs because, by their definition, they are more susceptible to injury. For many of these road users, just receiving legitimisation will be a great victory, as they argue that road transport laws primarily serve drivers of motor vehicles and do not do a great job protecting more vulnerable road users. As an example, an issue that is receiving more prominence recently is the difficulty that cyclists have in pursuing prosecution or even compensation when they are injured by a car.
It is a fundamental failure to recognise or understand these vulnerable road users—perhaps conveyed in the opposition we are seeing to it today—that is actually at the foundation of several of these accidents. “Dooring” of cyclists, for example, seems to result from drivers’ lack of awareness of cyclists and in many cases the perpetrator
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video