What the Tasmanian Liberals will do:

Invest more than $7 million in priority road safety measures in Education, Engineering and Enforcement – to improve safety on Tasmania’s roads and help reduce road trauma.

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Why this policy is needed
Too many Tasmanians are still being killed or injured on our roads each year.

Tasmania has the highest rate of fatalities per 100,000 registered vehicles – 15 per 100,000 vehicles – which has increased against the national trend over the last five years.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has found that young drivers aged between 17 and 25 are eleven times more likely to be killed or injured in crashes.

Holders of provisional driver licences have a significantly higher risk of being involved in crashes during the first few months of solo driving.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has found that Tasmania has a significantly higher level of serious injury for heavy vehicle transport drivers compared to the national rate.

The Tasmanian Liberals have developed a comprehensive road safety policy package.  This package is summarised below.  We believe that all of these measures will contribute to a lowering of the death and casualty rate among Tasmanian road users.

Tasmanians expect our laws to provide an effective deterrent to young people who deliberately speed and hoon on our streets – and also expect those laws to be enforced. A Hodgman majority Liberal Government will implement a comprehensive package that strikes the right balance between Education, Engineering and Enforcement.

EDUCATION

TOUGHER MEASURES FOR P PLATE SPEEDERS
Drivers on a P1 or P2 licence who are caught speeding more than 15 kilometres over the speed limit will be required to participate in a compulsory day of driver education in addition to the current penalties in place.  The accredited training would be taken at the driver’s expense. This education will potentially include direct contact with the victims and families of those involved in road accidents, wherever possible to bring home the serious impact of speeding.

We will work with stakeholders, experts, and local community organisations to identify the most appropriate way to deliver this driver education initiative.

COMPULSORY DRIVER EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS
A Hodgman Majority Liberal Government will work with the Education Department to make sure the resources are available to fund the Road Risk Reduction Program and make it compulsory for Year 9 and 10 students.  We believe it is crucial that all drivers are taught the road rules and proper driver behaviour at the same time as they are learning to drive.

A Hodgman Majority Liberal Government will guarantee funding to continue the successful Rotary Youth Driver Awareness program and will provide $150,000 a year for four years to extend it to all eligible students – attending either government or non-government schools.  Consideration will be given to integrating RYDA as a component of the compulsory driver education curriculum.

LINKING RESPONSIBILITY AT SCHOOL AND ON THE ROAD
Under a Hodgman Majority Liberal Government, a student wanting a learner driver licence before he or she turns 18 will have to first complete a driver education course at school.

Learning to drive will be part of their education.

They will get an idea about such things as their responsibilities on the road as a driver, passenger and pedestrian, the power of motor vehicles, what to do in different road conditions and basic first aid. They can also learn about the effect of speed, inattention, alcohol and drugs on them and other road users.

In addition, students applying for a learner driver licence will have to show two things – that they have a satisfactory school attendance record, and that they have behaved responsibly at school.

Behaving responsibly at school should mean no pattern of suspensions or expulsions. That information is centrally held for State schools and locally held by non‐government schools, so there would be no extra burden on school administrators.

If they can’t provide a satisfactory attendance and behaviour record, they won’t be able to get a learner driver licence until after they have turned 18 years of age or unless they have earned back that privilege through better behaviour.

A responsible attitude at school is more likely to lead to a responsible approach behind the wheel.

Our Liberal policy will give students an added incentive to behave at school, and the driver education course will instil a basic understanding of road safety before these young Tasmanians get on the road.

The Tasmanian Liberals’ policy will encourage young Tasmanians seeking their first learner driver licence to be better prepared when they get behind the wheel.

COMPULSORY DRIVER EDUCATION FOR DRIVERS WHO LOSE LICENCES
The Tasmanian Liberals believe that any person who has had his or her driver licence suspended or who has been disqualified from driving because of an accumulation of offences or a particular offence, should be required to undertake a short course which relates to driver behaviour.  A Hodgman Majority Liberal Government would seek advice on implementation of this initiative from other jurisdictions where it has been shown to improve driver behaviour.

SPEED CAMERA REVENUE
Given that speed is such a large contributor to car crashes which cause death and injury, a Hodgman Majority Liberal Government will quarantine revenue from speed cameras to be used for road safety measures, including public education and physical infrastructure.

MEDICAL CONDITIONS AFFECTING DRIVERS
A Hodgman Majority Liberal Government will examine adopting legislation to make it an offence for a driver not to report any known medical condition that may affect their ability to drive to their medical practitioner and the Registrar of Motor Vehicles.  The Australian Medical Association will be consulted about affording protection from liability for medical practitioners and other health care professionals who provide information in good faith about a person’s medical fitness to hold, or continue to hold, a driver licence.

MOTORBIKE AND ATV SAFETY
Several young Tasmanians have died recently in ATV accidents.

A Hodgman Majority Liberal Government will make it mandatory for all dealerships retailing motorcycles to provide the new owner a DVD showing various safety hints to motorcyclists and users of all terrain vehicles (ATVs), for example safety tips, helmet use, care and maintenance of the machine.  This would be one way of encouraging motorbike and ATV riders, particularly younger riders on farms and off public roads, to take more care when riding – Tasmania, like all Australian jurisdictions, has a number of motorbike and ATV deaths and injuries each year, which could be preventable.  We will allocate $50,000 from the Road Safety Levy for this purpose.

HEAVY VEHICLES
The Tasmanian Liberals strongly support calls by heavy vehicle operator groups for further driver education measures and an advertising campaign to alert road users to the different characteristics of heavy vehicles on the road.  We would allocate $250,000 from the Road Safety Levy for this purpose.

This would complement the national uniform heavy vehicle driver fatigue measures which became law in Tasmania in September 2008.

VOLUNTARY DRIVERS AND COMMUNITY CARS
A Hodgman Majority Liberal Government believes that those who volunteer to drive members of the community should be able to access affordable defensive driving and driver refresher courses.

We will allocate $100,000 over two years from the Road Safety Levy to defray the cost of defensive driver training for volunteer drivers who drive for Community Transport Services Tasmania, who drive frail and incapacitated Tasmanians around the State.

This allocation will also be used to encourage drivers under the Community Car Scheme to undertake defensive driving courses.

CREDIT FOR PROFESSIONAL DRIVING LESSONS
A Hodgman Majority Liberal Government would provide that a driving lesson undertaken by an accredited professional driving instructor be counted as equivalent to three years of supervised driving towards the 50 hours of compulsory logbook practice, capped at up to five professional lessons (15 hours) per learner driver.

Eligible driving instructors under this credit arrangement will be required to have national accreditation to keys2drive standard.

PARLIAMENTARY SCRUTINY OF ROAD SAFETY
A Hodgman Majority Liberal Government would ask Parliament to establish a Joint Standing Committee on Road Safety, similar to the standing committee that exists in Victoria and following from the successful work of the Legislative Council Select Committee on Road Safety.

The first reference to the new Committee will be to examine the effectiveness of the Road Safety Levy since its introduction in December 2007 and provide recommendations on future directions for strategic road safety measures, both in terms of education and infrastructure.

ENGINEEERING

AUDIBLE LINE MARKING
A Hodgman Majority Liberal Government will allocate $6 million over three years from the Road Safety Levy to extend audio-tactile profiled (ATP) line marking on roads in the State, including the Bass Highway between Launceston and Devonport, and other high volume roads, or where particular black spots warrant it.

ATP line marking can greatly assist in protecting drivers who are fatigued or inattentive – two of the principle causes of road crashes and fatalities in Tasmania.

LINE-MARKING AND SIGNAGE ON REGIONAL ROADS
Faded or non-existent line-marking is a major contributory factor to accidents on regional roads in Tasmania.  A Hodgman Majority Liberal Government will allocate an initial $500,000 from the Road Safety Levy for Local Government councils to apply for funds for improved line-marking, signage and barrier in their municipalities.  We will involve the RACT in providing advice on appropriate signage priorities.

FOUR LANE MIDLAND HIGHWAY
A Hodgman Majority Liberal Government will work with the Federal Government to upgrade the Midland Highway to a four-lane divided highway, over 20 years.  The Midland and Bass highways are part of the National Highway network and duplication has already been done on the Bass Highway between Devonport and Burnie, through co-operation with State and Federal governments of both political persuasions.  This will make this main transport route much safer.

ROAD SAFETY AUTHORITY
A Hodgman Majority Liberal Government will establish a Tasmanian Road Safety Authority.  This body will have charge of the Road Safety Levy Trust Fund.  We believe such a body would have the support of the Motor Accidents Insurance Board and motor vehicle insurers and would have a primary focus on public education – including school road safety programmes and support for specific identified areas where the death and casualty rates in Tasmania is higher than the national average, e.g. accidents involving young drivers, accidents on farms (cars, tractors, motorcycles and ATVs) and private roads.  The Tasmanian Liberals believe the need for such a dedicated authority is unarguable.

VEHICLE ACTIVATED SIGNS
The Tasmanian Liberals have long-supported the installation of solar-power vehicle activated warning signs.  We support the installation of vehicle-activated signs for all school crossings funded from the Road Safety Levy.  Where appropriate, we would extend this to pedestrian crossings.  We also support the investigation of such signs for black spot areas to remind drivers to slow down, or to alert them to particular hazards.

ALCOHOL INTERLOCK DEVICES
The Tasmanian Liberals have supported the trial of alcohol interlock devices currently underway in this State and a Hodgman Majority Liberal Government will introduce them permanently as a sanction.

FLEXIBLE BARRIERS
The Tasmanian Liberals support the progressive implementation of the range of road safety measures in the Transport Road Safety Strategy 2007-2016 particularly in regard to the installation of flexible barriers on high volume rural roads modified with stack cushions and ‘rub-rails’ to minimise possible harm to motorcyclists.

ROAD CONDITION
Road condition has been identified by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, Tasmania Police and the Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources as a significant contributory factor in car crashes.  Apart from the obvious other benefits to the travelling public, the Tasmanian Liberals announced plan to duplicate, over the next 20 years, the 120 kilometres of the Midland Highway that are not already dual carriageway, will significantly contribute to improve road safety, given the percentage of fatalities which annually occur on the National Highway network in Tasmania.

ENFORCEMENT

CRUSHING CARS OF DANGEROUS DRIVERS
Last year around 2,000 drivers were caught on Tasmanian roads at the wheel of a vehicle after the court had already banned them for dangerous driving.   These repeat offenders need to know that there will be a logical series of consequences for this sort of behaviour.

The first step is that the car will be impounded on the first offence, not the second.  After we persistently raised this issue last year, the Government did move to upgrade the law, but it is still deficient.

For dangerous drivers who are caught on a third occasion after having their vehicles previously impounded, a Hodgman Majority Liberal Government will amend the law to give the courts which permanently confiscate the vehicle a range of options to deal with that vehicle – if the court orders forfeiture, the vehicle will be sold by public tender or auction with the proceeds going to support government expenditure on road safety measures.

However, in an extreme case if a judge or magistrate feels the circumstances warrant it, the court may issue a destruction order for the vehicle to be crushed, to be witnessed by the owner.

This reminds people that a vehicle in the hands of a person who has been repeatedly apprehended for dangerous driving is, effectively, a lethal weapon.

A vehicle destruction order would only be issued by the court in extreme circumstances and where a person has been a persistent offender.   Under our policy, it will not be a mandatory provision and the discretion to issue such an order will always be for the judge or magistrate to decide.

New Zealand has recently passed legislation for car crushing as an option for courts (and only for repeat offenders) and Victoria is contemplating such laws.

This will be an educative and a deterrent to dangerous drivers, and as you will appreciate, confiscation and sale of vehicles or their crushing will be a penalty that is applied only in extreme cases.

DOUBLE DEMERIT POINT ON SPECIFIC DAYS
A Hodgman Majority Liberal Government will adopt a double demerit point system for long weekends, Easter and the period between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, similar to that which operates in NSW and certain other States.

This will not only ensure that the high percentage of Tasmanians and visitors who travel around the State are aware that breaches of road laws will bring a heavier penalty.  It is not revenue-raising measure, but it sends a clear message for drivers to take special care during busy times.

MORE PERMANENT SPEED CAMERAS
A Hodgman Majority Liberal Government would install permanent speed cameras should be installed at black spot sites which have been proven by police statistics to be common sites of crashes.  The Tasmanian Liberals recognise that there is a cost for such equipment, so therefore the cameras would be rolled out over a period of time. 

MORE VISIBLE POLICE
The Tasmanian Liberals have long supported high visibility police patrol cars on our highways.  A Hodgman Majority Liberal Government will continue this roll out, which for so long was opposed by Labor, and look at making all marked police vehicles more visible in the community.  More visible police vehicle markings are a significant deterrent to bad driver behaviour, and consequently contribute to a reduction in road trauma.

POINT-TO-POINT SPEED ENFORCEMENT
A Hodgman Majority Liberal Government is committed to a trial of point-to-point speed enforcement in Tasmania and, subject to an assessment of its cost-benefit, to adopting this technology in the State.

ROAD SAFETY STRATEGY 2007-2016
A Hodgman Majority Liberal Government will add an additional focus to the Strategy focusing on vehicle condition and monitoring defects and maintenance.

We also commit to roadworthiness ‘blitzes’ at least two times a year and more frequent, random, vehicle checks

VEHICLE REGISTRATION
A Hodgman Majority Liberal Government will consider shortening the 90 day re-registration ‘grace’ period.  We will also consider the penalties for driving an unregistered vehicle and tightening the ‘plate return’ requirements.

POINT-TO-POINT SPEED ENFORCEMENT
A Hodgman Majority Liberal Government is committed to a trial of point-to-point speed enforcement in Tasmania and, subject to an assessment of its cost-benefit, to adopting this technology in the State.

COMMUNITY ROAD SAFETY PARTNERSHIPS PROGRAM
A Hodgman Majority Liberal Government is supportive of the CRSP program and acknowledges the success of CRSP in facilitating Local Government and community engagement on local road safety issues and priorities.  We would encourage any non-participating councils to adopt this approach.