❓ The Minister for Road Safety outlines the government's plan to improve road safety over the Easter long weekend, including increased police presence, double demerit points, and technology to detect offences. A political argument ensues regarding past road toll statistics.
AnsweredQoN 156Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
ROAD SAFETY — EASTER LONG WEEKEND
156. Mr I.C. BLAYNEY to the Minister for
Road Safety:
Can the minister please inform the
house of what the government will be doing to help keep Western Australians
safe on our roads this Easter?
156. Mr I.C. BLAYNEY to the Minister for
Road Safety:
Can the minister please inform the
house of what the government will be doing to help keep Western Australians
safe on our roads this Easter?
AnswerView source ↗
I thank the member for Geraldton for
this very important question on road safety, as we head into one of the busiest
weekends on our roads in Western Australia's calendar. On the Easter
long weekend, thousands of Western Australians travel to holiday destinations.
Year in, year out police do their level best to try to ensure that the road toll
over the Easter long weekend is kept to a minimum. We would love to have a zero
fatality rate on the Easter long weekend but, sadly, we are still seeing the
same causes of fatal and serious injuries in crashes that are reported in the
media around these kinds of events.
I was very pleased to launch the Easter road safety strategy
and campaign by police today. We have deployed additional booze buses to the
south west and the great southern regions and that will start to have more of
an impact around this long weekend period on drink and drug-driving. We are
also deploying some of our motorcycle fleet, and some of those motorcycles have
been fitted with speed detecting equipment so that those officers, as they
travel on our major arterial roads, in the east and the north, will have the
opportunity to clock the speeds of vehicles coming towards them and infringe
those motorists accordingly. Importantly, members will be aware that this
weekend is a double demerit points weekend. Those people who are infringed will
end up accruing double the demerit points that they would otherwise accrue.
We are also putting six additional
mobile speed cameras into regional centres, effectively doubling our capacity,
and police will be using long-range camera equipment, which will be focused on
motorists to detect seatbelt offences, mobile phone offences—those
causes of distraction and the non-wearing of seatbelts that result in crashes
becoming catastrophes, as people are thrown from a vehicle as a result of not
wearing appropriate restraints. A lot of the police vehicles will have
numberplate recognition technology, so as our fleet of officers move throughout
the regions with a very high visibility focus, they will be clocking the
numberplates and pulling over the drivers whom we know are high risk, or
vehicles being driven by unlicensed drivers.
Several members interjected.
Mrs
L.M. HARVEY : It is interesting that we see members opposite yawning through
this answer. Since we came to government —
Mrs
M.H. Roberts interjected.
The
SPEAKER : Member for Midland! You have one minute, minister.
Mrs
L.M. HARVEY : Since we came to government we have driven down the road toll
in this state by 34 per cent. The member for Midland has a hide interjecting on
me. When she was minister, the road toll rose. It rose by nearly a third under
her watch.
Several members interjected.
The
SPEAKER : Member for Midland, I call you to order for the first time. You
have 30 seconds, minister.
Mrs
L.M. HARVEY : Police will also be using their covert hoon cameras in
regional areas to target known hoon hotspots to get those dangerous drivers off
our roads. My message to motorists over Easter is to slow down, to drive to
conditions, and to please put road safety as their first priority as they
venture out over the Easter long weekend. Our road toll sits at 46. That is 46
families who will not have their loved ones with them this Christmas. We need
to interrupt that process and ensure that we drive down the road toll and
reduce the impact of road trauma across the state.
this very important question on road safety, as we head into one of the busiest
weekends on our roads in Western Australia's calendar. On the Easter
long weekend, thousands of Western Australians travel to holiday destinations.
Year in, year out police do their level best to try to ensure that the road toll
over the Easter long weekend is kept to a minimum. We would love to have a zero
fatality rate on the Easter long weekend but, sadly, we are still seeing the
same causes of fatal and serious injuries in crashes that are reported in the
media around these kinds of events.
I was very pleased to launch the Easter road safety strategy
and campaign by police today. We have deployed additional booze buses to the
south west and the great southern regions and that will start to have more of
an impact around this long weekend period on drink and drug-driving. We are
also deploying some of our motorcycle fleet, and some of those motorcycles have
been fitted with speed detecting equipment so that those officers, as they
travel on our major arterial roads, in the east and the north, will have the
opportunity to clock the speeds of vehicles coming towards them and infringe
those motorists accordingly. Importantly, members will be aware that this
weekend is a double demerit points weekend. Those people who are infringed will
end up accruing double the demerit points that they would otherwise accrue.
We are also putting six additional
mobile speed cameras into regional centres, effectively doubling our capacity,
and police will be using long-range camera equipment, which will be focused on
motorists to detect seatbelt offences, mobile phone offences—those
causes of distraction and the non-wearing of seatbelts that result in crashes
becoming catastrophes, as people are thrown from a vehicle as a result of not
wearing appropriate restraints. A lot of the police vehicles will have
numberplate recognition technology, so as our fleet of officers move throughout
the regions with a very high visibility focus, they will be clocking the
numberplates and pulling over the drivers whom we know are high risk, or
vehicles being driven by unlicensed drivers.
Several members interjected.
Mrs
L.M. HARVEY : It is interesting that we see members opposite yawning through
this answer. Since we came to government —
Mrs
M.H. Roberts interjected.
The
SPEAKER : Member for Midland! You have one minute, minister.
Mrs
L.M. HARVEY : Since we came to government we have driven down the road toll
in this state by 34 per cent. The member for Midland has a hide interjecting on
me. When she was minister, the road toll rose. It rose by nearly a third under
her watch.
Several members interjected.
The
SPEAKER : Member for Midland, I call you to order for the first time. You
have 30 seconds, minister.
Mrs
L.M. HARVEY : Police will also be using their covert hoon cameras in
regional areas to target known hoon hotspots to get those dangerous drivers off
our roads. My message to motorists over Easter is to slow down, to drive to
conditions, and to please put road safety as their first priority as they
venture out over the Easter long weekend. Our road toll sits at 46. That is 46
families who will not have their loved ones with them this Christmas. We need
to interrupt that process and ensure that we drive down the road toll and
reduce the impact of road trauma across the state.
Explore WA Government Data
Search the full archive in the free dashboard, or query programmatically via API.
Explore more
Government Gazette
Appointments, regulatory notices, planning changes.
Hansard
Debates, questions, speeches and sentiment.
Tabled Papers
Reports and documents tabled in Parliament.
Committees
Committee profiles and recent reports.
Regulations
Subsidiary legislation with filters and summaries.
Bills
Proposed laws and parliamentary progress.
Acts
Current WA legislation and summaries.
Explanatory Memoranda
Bills with EMs (text/PDF) available.
Members
MP profiles, party breakdown and rankings.
Pollie Rankings
Data-driven rankings across 19 categories.
Amendment Chains
Track how schemes and regulations evolve over time.