Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

ROWN (—) (): Over the break, I spent my time across the country speaking with road safety experts and advocates and the transport industry about how we can move towards Vision Zero.

In early July, I travelled to Adelaide to convene a road safety roundtable. The roundtable had the specific focus of risky road use. Risky road use is the actions people consciously take which risk their safety and the safety of other road users. Examples of risky road use include drink and drug driving, speeding and the absolutely pervasive act of playing on a mobile while driving. Participating in any of these actions or others significantly and devastatingly increases a driver's risk of a crash. We know that even low-level speeding, the speeding we see every day, such as people driving on a highway a few kilometres over the limit, detrimentally increases a person's chance of a crash. For every five kilometres over the speed limit in a 60 kilometre an hour zone, the risk of involvement in a fatal crash doubles. An alcohol level of just over 0.05, or the legal limit, doubles your risk of being involved in a casualty crash. And driving while fatigued, or, in other words, only getting a few hours of sleep, makes you 4½ times more likely to crash than a driver who's had a proper night's sleep.

If you jump in your car and you drive for 10 to 15 minutes, I can guarantee you will see someone clearly using their phone while driving, usually trying to disguise it but often blatantly driving while texting or scrolling. To bring those scrolling, posting or chatting while driving back to reality, I will remind them of this: 16 per cent of all serious casualty road crashes resulting in hospital attendance in Australia occur as a result of distracted driving.

In order to have a constructive conversation about this issue, the roundtable included experts from the alcohol and drug sector and advocates from a large range of road safety organisations. The first segment of the roundtable was focused on increasing seatbelt use. We know that drivers without a seatbelt are 8.3 times more likely to sustain a fatal injury and 5.2 times more likely to sustain a serious injury. Horrifyingly, since 2008, we have seen an upward trend in road deaths from both drivers and passengers not wearing seatbelts. In 2021, 22 per cent of drivers and 21 per cent of passengers who died on Australian roads were not wearing seatbelts. Take a moment to really consider that in 2021 drivers and passengers were still simply not clipping in their seat belt. That decision is leaving families and communities shattered and lives lost forever. Participants at the round table spoke clearly about the need for improvement of seatbelt use in regional and remote Australia, noting the average proportion of road deaths where the driver is not wearing a seatbelt in regional and remote Australia is more than double the proportion in major cities and regional hubs.

The conversation then moved on to drink- and drug-driving. It is welcome news that rates of drink-driving are reducing. However, it is still a significant contributor to overall road deaths. The reduction of drink-driving deaths correlates with the overall reduction in the overall alcohol consumption across Australia. Further, some incredible organisations are doing life-saving work in the drink-driving space. We were fortunate enough to have Simon Strahan, the national CEO of DrinkWise, in the room. Simon shared some of the recent and innovative campaigns the organisations were running, one of which involves working hand in hand with the Australian wine industry to create resources to increase consumer understanding at wine tastings. So far, close to 2,000 cellar doors and tourism organisations across Australia have signed up to participate in the campaign, and they've expanded the resource beyond cellar doors.

Secondly, I've spent time in Melbourne to announce a new Australian design rule for vehicles. I would like to start by saying a huge and sincere thank you to Emma, Peter and Eve, parents who have lost one of their precious children to a reversing incident. Emma and Peter Cockburn have been advocating for reversing aids and other measures to minimise the possibility of driveway accidents occurring. The advocacy began after a tragic accident which saw their beautiful daughter killed in a reversing accident. I was proud to stand with them to announce that the Australian government is mandating reversing aids for all new model vehicles in 2025 and all new vehicles come 2027. The mandate will cover all vehicles—light, medium and heavy, cars, vans and trucks. This mandate will provide drivers with the best possible line of sight while reversing. No parent, family or friend should ever have to experience the devastation of losing a loved one on or around our roads. The mandate will mean that new vehicles will need to be fitted with at least two reversing aids such as reversing cameras, motion sensors or vibrations which alert the driver to a person or an object close to the vehicle. We know that mandating reversing aids will reduce the devastating impact of reversing accidents.

I want to share a bit of Emma and Peter's story to demonstrate just how big an impact this mandate will have. Here are their words they shared at the time of the announcement:

So on the 16th of April 2011 our world changed forever when we lost our youngest daughter Georgina …

…   …   …

Before this accident, I thought I was in control. I had my wife, I had the kids, I had this new house, I thought it was safe for my kids and I thought I was a good driver. I thought I was a good parent. As a kid I was taught how to control the car. I was that person who watched TV seeing a family just lost someone and remember thinking those poor people what they are going through, so sad. It's okay, it's not going to happen to me. I'm in control. I was wrong. I learnt the hard way. It did happen to me. When accidents like this happens you do the what ifs. What if I just went slower? Come home later? All of these things go through your head. So how did I do this. I remember going back weeks later and hopping in the car, popping in the car, looking in the mirror. I ended putting the bucket behind the car to see why I didn't see her. I ended up taking that bucket 10 to 20 metres from the car. This is why I didn't see her.

This is why this rule is going to save lives. Because as a driver if you don't see it, you're gonna hit it as an object or child, whatever it may be. It's the end of the day. It's gonna happen. It's not you're a bad driver. You literally didn't see it.

Emma and Peter have shown such determination, and this mandate can save lives. If this mandate saves just one life, it will be well worth it.