Tuesday, 14 May 2024

Economy and Infrastructure Committee

Inquiry into the Impact of Road Safety Behaviours on Vulnerable Road Users

Jess WILSON (Kew) (11:00): I rise to speak on the Economy and Infrastructure Committee’s inquiry into the impact of road safety behaviours on vulnerable road users, and I acknowledge that you were the chair of the committee, Acting Speaker Marchant, and also the other members in the chamber who served alongside me on the committee over the past 12 months. The inquiry specifically focused on vulnerable road users, and those are the people who are least protected and most at risk on the road, such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. In 2023 they made up nearly 36 per cent of all lives lost on Victorian roads, and in 2022 they made up almost half. Of course there are other vulnerable road users, such as older people, children and people with a disability, but specifically pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists are those that we see losing their lives on roads all too often.

The committee was asked to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the behaviour of road users and the impact of this on particularly vulnerable road users. Unsurprisingly, there were fewer vehicles on the road during the pandemic lockdowns and road fatalities did fall in 2020 and 2021. However, they did not fall as much as expected when compared to the drop in kilometres actually travelled. We saw, for example, in Victoria fuel sales fell by 26 per cent in 2020, but fatalities only fell by 12 per cent. And after restrictions lifted, we did see the number of lives lost on Victorian roads rise in 2022 and 2023. What the report found and what the inquiry found was that while there is a lack of published supporting data, anecdotal evidence does suggest that Victorian drivers behaviour worsened during and after the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of increased aggression, impatience, risk-taking, inattention and rule-breaking.

We make a number of recommendations in this report, but we did identify six of the highest priority. These include: developing a road user hierarchy, creating a vulnerable road user advisory group to contribute to the development of road safety interventions, reviewing the flexibility of speed zoning guidelines, reviewing the location of pedestrian crossings on arterial roads to ensure there are regular crossings and prioritising road treatments in regional areas, in particular looking at regional road safety. If I talk to a specific number of findings, in particular finding 15 in the report, it says:

Restrictions in Victoria’s Speed Zoning Technical Guidelines limit the designation of 40 km/h speed limit zones in certain areas as well as the timing of school speed zones, resulting in higher speed limits that place vulnerable road users at risk.

What we heard was that there are technical guidelines, particularly those enforced by VicRoads, that require a limited amount of designated road space to put in place 40-kilometre per hour zones – it is a minimum of 400 metres. This is an issue that has played out in my own electorate of Kew, where the North Balwyn village has been fighting for years to reduce the 60-kilometre speed limit through that shopping strip to a 40-kilometre speed limit, but time and time again the request by those local traders, those shoppers, the primary school around the corner and the parishioners at the Greek Orthodox Church to reduce that speed limit has been rejected because it does not meet the bureaucratic guidelines of VicRoads and, excuse the pun, they are hitting roadblock after roadblock. We should be doing everything we can to support our hardworking local traders and small businesses and helping to increase safety and foot traffic at that shopping strip.

Just two weeks ago in this place I tabled a petition signed by more than 440 local residents calling on the Allan government to reduce that speed limit. I thank the Minister for Roads and Road Safety for her engagement on this issue. I provided her with letters of support from 21 local traders along the strip, Boroondara council, St Bede’s Primary School and of course the local area commander Inspector Sandy McIver on behalf of Victoria Police, all calling for the reduction in that speed limit. I call on the minister to once again overcome the technical and bureaucratic roadblocks at VicRoads, including that arbitrary 400-metre minimum requirement for a 40-kilometre zone, and instead put safety first, support our small businesses and reduce the speed limit.

With the time remaining, can I just also call out recommendations around the importance of increasing pedestrian crossings right across Victoria, but particularly in certain locations in the electorate of Kew, and greater accessibility to public transport through assessable tram stops – another key recommendation from this inquiry.