Of the 500 000 'on the spot' offences, about 75% are demerit points offences. Some are withdrawn before or during processing by the Penalty Payments Office, while others are referred to the Court system where about half result in no conviction being recorded though fines may be paid. As a result VicRoads is notified of about 300 000 demerit points offences from 'on the spot' activities.

Of the 1 300 000 vehicles detected by speed and red light cameras, about 950 000 are photographed, but only about 550 000 offences processed and notified to VicRoads due to problems related to the cameras or to the need for unambiguous vehicle identification.

Of the total of 850 000 demerit points offences notified to VicRoads, the need to be certain that the correct driver has been identified results in about a third of the points not being applied so that about 550 000 demerit points offences are added to licences, equivalent to one for each 5.5 drivers. However as some drivers incur multiple offences, only about 1 in 9 licences actually incur demerit points in any year.

2 Gebers, M.A., Traffic Conviction and Accident Record Facts, Californian Department of Motor Vehicles, October 1990, p. 7.

3 Ibid., p. 12.

4 Shaw, D.E. & Rowles, C.D., Examination of the Relationship between Road Traffic Crashes and Violations in the A.C.T., Federal Office of Road Safety, Report CR 50, April 1987.

5 Op. cit., p. 9.

6 Tasmania, Department of Roads and Transport, Accident Research Group, Accident Occurrence and the Commission of Traffic Offences, Research Report 76, July 1990, p. 2.

7 Op. cit., p. 3.

8 Queensland, Parliamentary TravelSafe Committee, Report on Achieving High Levels of Compliance with Road Safety Laws, March 1992, p. 41.

9 Gebers, op. cit.

10 Janke, M., Kuan, J. & Peck, R., Strategies for Increasing the Traffic Safety Potential of the Negligent Operator Point System, Californian Department of Motor Vehicles, October 1987, p. 1.

11 Smiley, A., Hauer, E., Persaud, B., Clifford, L. and Duncan, D., Accident Potential: An Ontario Driver Records Study Technical Report, Ontario Ministry of Transportation, April 1991. See also Smiley, A., Persaud, B., Hauer, E. and Duncan, D., Accidents, Convictions, And Demerit Points: An Ontario Driver Records Study, Transportation Record 1238, pp. 53-64.

12 Smiley, A., Hauer, E., Persaud, B., Clifford, L. & Duncan, D., Accidents, Convictions and Demerit Points - An Ontario Driver Records Study, Phase 2: Separate Accident Prediction Models for Car Drivers and Truck Drivers, Ontario Ministry of Transportation, October 1992, pp. i-ii.

13 Ibid., p. ii.

14 Hauer, E., Quayle, K. and Liu, A., On the Use of Accident or Conviction Counts to Trigger Action, Transportation Research Record 1401, Transportation Research Board, 1993, pp. 17-25.

15 From Gebers, op. cit., Table 8, p. 15. The top 0.3% of Californian offenders have 8 or more offences in a three year period and 5 to 6 times as many accidents as conviction-free drivers.

16 VicRoads, Supplementary submission to the Inquiry into the Demerit Points Scheme, March 1994, p. 6.

17 Victoria, Parliamentary Social Development Committee, Inquiry into Speed Limits in Victoria, November 1991. (Chapter 7 is on Speed Cameras including the Traffic Camera Office operation, camera site selection and enforcement tolerance levels, and Appendix C deals with speed and crashes.)

18 VicRoads, Submission to the Inquiry into the Demerit Points Scheme, 8 November 1993, p. 61.

19 Ibid., p. 8.

20 Mr C. Jeffery, Submission to the Inquiry into the Demerit Points Scheme, 12 August 1993.

21 VicRoads, op. cit., March 1994, p. 1.

22 Federal Office of Road Safety, Presentation to the Inquiry into the Demerit Points Scheme, Canberra, 10 May 1994.

23 Federal Office of Road Safety, Submission to the Inquiry into the Demerit Points Scheme, 27 January 1994.

24 Ibid., p. 15.

25 Ibid., p. 20.

26 Ibid., p. 6.

27 Ibid., p. 7.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid.

30 Moore, V.M., Dolinis, J. & Woodward, A.J., Speed as a factor in road traffic crash occurrence, Road Safety Researchers' Conference, Adelaide, December 1993.

31 Dr A. McLean, Minutes of Evidence, 22 February 1994, p. 197.

32 Ibid.

33 Smith, D.I. and Maisey, G.E., Survey of driving by disqualified and suspended drivers in Western Australia, Report CR 94, Federal Office of Road Safety, 1991.

34 These licences are available in Western Australia by applying to a Court. The conditions are usually to allow the driver to drive to and from work only. Anecdotal information supplied to the Committee is that these conditions are often disregarded.

35 Federal Office of Road Safety, Presentation to the Inquiry into the Demerit Points Scheme, Canberra, 10 May 1994.