Tuesday, 14 May 2024

Economy and Infrastructure Committee

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

Wayne FARNHAM (Narracan) (11:10): I am pleased to rise today to talk on the Economy and Infrastructure Committee inquiry into the impact of road safety behaviours on vulnerable road users. I was part of this committee, and it was a very, very good committee. Obviously the chair was the best chair of all the committees we have ever had, but I would like to thank my fellow committee members the members for Bellarine, Shepparton, Pascoe Vale, Glen Waverley and Tarneit and the member for Kew, and also the secretariat: Kerryn, Marianna, Alyssa and Adeel.

It was quite interesting being on the committee, being this was my first time to have an opportunity, and I thought the committee got along very well, and we listened to a lot of submissions. There were over 300 submissions, from memory, and it was interesting when we were talking about the vulnerable road users. Obviously active transport plays a big part of that when we are talking about vulnerable road users, and what was interesting through the committee and all the discussions, especially coming from the people that ride bicycles, was probably one of their biggest concerns was the amount of distance we have between cars and bicycles when we are on the road, and scooter operators as well, which got me thinking. I thought, ‘Well, I’m not much of a bike rider,’ as you could probably tell, but I thought, ‘I’ll test out –

Members interjecting.

Wayne FARNHAM: No, I do not wear lycra. I thought, ‘I’m not going to ride up Collins Street, but I’ll grab one of those scooters that everyone talked about’ – the e-scooters – and I decided to ride the e-scooter from the apartment into Parliament one day. I was going up Collins Street. To say the scooter struggled getting up Collins Street might be a bit of an understatement, but there is not a lot of distance between the bike lane and cars. If we are going to talk about these committees and then we have to look at the infrastructure that is there, maybe we have to go back and look at the infrastructure so they can have that distance that is actually legally required.

What I found in this committee, and one of the issues that is coming out of this committee, is the introduction of electric cars and e-scooters and the effect that has on walkers, because they cannot hear these vehicles or scooters coming. I think we were out in the member for Pascoe Vale’s electorate. We had quite a few walking groups come in there, and they were talking about how accidents happen. They said they had done studies around the electric vehicles and the scooters, and it is quite dangerous, but one thing they did not study was – I did ask the question at that time – how many people had earphones in or headphones in. When we talk about vulnerable road users I think we need to talk about the education as well at the same time to educate people about certain risks if they are riding or walking along those lines. Everyone wanted separate lanes for everything. To be honest, we do not have enough space for separate lanes for bikes, separate lanes for walkers and separate lanes for cars. Looking at that, when we are going forward and looking at new subdivisions and everything else, you really must take this into account.

One thing that really struck me, and it is a challenge in regional Victoria, is when we are talking about how easy it is in the city because the suburbs are quite close and linked, but in regional Victoria, especially in my seat, we cannot put bike lanes around an electorate of 4500 square kilometres – it is near impossible. What we should be looking at, and what the government should be looking at investing in, is safety on the main arterial roads where the main traffic goes, especially for bike riders, because in regional Victoria our roads are full of potholes, our edges are rough and an accident can happen quite easily with active transport users in these areas. The government really needs to look at increasing the investment into regional roads to make it better for vulnerable road users and active road users, and I would suggest out of this report the government should take that on board.