Page 629 - Week 02 - Thursday, 22 February 2018
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on their own bikes. The centres have a look and feel of the real road environment, with child-size roads and pedestrian crossings built around footpaths making this an ideal learning environment for schools, families and, in fact, the whole community. They provide a practical way to educate cyclists at an early age while promoting the health and environmental benefits of active travel.
The ACT government partnered with Safer Australian Roads and Highways, or SARAH, to promote National Road Safety Week in May with a display of large yellow floral wreaths on four ACT roads with the highest collision rates. The wreaths were used as a reminder to all Canberrans of the significant physical, emotional and financial impact road trauma has on our community.
The ACT government has promoted the Australasian new car assessment program—better known as ANCAP—safety rating on new cars targeted at younger and older drivers. In July two ANCAP crash test cars—one a five-star-rated vehicle and the other a zero-star-rated car—were on display at St Mary MacKillop College, demonstrating the difference in damage caused to each vehicle in a head-on collision. Following the success of this first launch, the display was repeated in Garema Place in November 2017.
There are also a number of evaluations completed and underway, such as the recent motorcycle lane filtering trial and the road safety camera program. The two-year trial of motorcycle lane filtering was completed in February 2017. The conditions of the trial are still in place while the working group considers the outcomes of an evaluation to make recommendations to me on how it believes we should proceed.
An evaluation of the ACT road safety camera program is currently underway to assess the impact of the ACT’s mobile road safety camera program and point-to-point camera program on reducing crashes and speed. The evaluation will also identify any changes in community attitudes towards speeding and road safety camera enforcement and provide advice on strategic management of the camera program.
In December the 2017 ACT road safety forum was held in conjunction with the Australasian College of Road Safety. The forum discussed ways to achieve vision zero in the ACT through the safe systems approach to road network planning, design and maintenance. Associate Professor Jeremy Woolley, Director of the Centre for Automotive Safety Research at the University of Adelaide, provided an overview of the core elements of the safe systems approach to attendees representing various government directorates and other stakeholders. This was followed by a hypothetical discussion of what the ACT road network would look like in 2050 if we fully realised safe system design across the ACT road network in order to achieve vision zero.
As part of my commitment towards vision zero I will soon be issuing a discussion paper on the ACT graduated driver licensing scheme. I want to hear the ACT public’s opinion on changes to the current ACT graduated driver licensing scheme so that we may bring the current ACT scheme in line with the national framework and provide for more robust and effective road safety reforms for our young people. I am confident that bringing the ACT graduated driver licensing scheme in line with the
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