New road safety legislation has been passed in the ACT Legislative Assembly today that will strengthen dangerous driving laws to reduce unsafe behaviours and the resulting injuries and deaths on our roads, particularly for pedestrians and cyclists. The legislative changes progressed today enhance the existing penalty framework by strengthening the hierarchy of dangerous driving offences so that they better address the spectrum of harm that Canberrans can experience on our roads. The new laws also include changes to support the safe use of other certain transport modes, including e-scooters.
The new laws introduce:
- new offences for not taking due care and attention or providing reasonable consideration when driving and riding;
- new police powers to direct a person to get off, or not get on, devices like e-scooters and bikes with associated penalties where a direction is ignored;
- new and updated offences for driving and riding without having proper control;
- update penalties for the existing offence of negligent driving that does not lead to injury or death;
- a new offence for negligent driving occasioning actual bodily harm, to ensure that dangerous behaviour that causes injury to another road user is appropriately recognised and penalised as the serious matter that it is; and
- higher automatic licence disqualification periods for several driving offences which result in serious harm or death.
Early intervention is key to prevent injuries and deaths on our road network. The new offences for driving without due care and attention or reasonable consideration of other road users and the new power for a police officer to direct a person to get off, or not get on, an animal, personal mobility device, bicycle or animal-drawn vehicle if the person is under the influence of alcohol or a drug will prevent accidents from occurring. These offences will attract a maximum court penalty of 20 penalty units (currently $3,200) or an infringement notice penalty of $154 for personal mobility devices (such as e-scooters), cyclists and if an direction from a police officer is ignored. An infringement notice penalty of $301 will apply for driving without due care and attention or reasonable consideration in other vehicles, including motor vehicles.
The next step in the hierarchy is new and strengthened laws relating to maintaining proper control of a vehicle or a personal mobility device. The new offence of failing to have proper control of a personal mobility device mirrors existing provisions that require a cyclist to have proper control of their bicycle. This offence is proposed to carry a maximum penalty of 20 penalty units (currently $3,200) or an infringement notice penalty of $154, which is consistent with existing penalties for similar offences.
The above changes will act as early intervention tools to stop dangerous behaviour before someone gets hurt and encourages ACT road users to display responsible behaviours that is expected of them when sharing the road network with others. The intent of introducing these new offences is to strengthen our existing dangerous driving framework and provide police with new preventative tools to target dangerous and unsafe road use behaviours before a person loses control of a vehicle and has the ability to harm another road user.
This legislation also increases the infringement notice penalty for the existing proper control of vehicles offence from $301 to $398 to ensure that the penalty fits appropriately with the hierarchy of dangerous driving offences in light of the new offences.
Updates to the negligent driving framework were also progressed to address dangerous behaviours which make our roads less safe, negligent driving leads to accidents or near misses. The changes increases the infringement notice penalty for negligent driving that does not occasion death, grievous bodily harm or actual bodily harm from $398 to $598.
The new offence for negligent driving occasioning actual bodily harm will capture harm that is of a serious nature, but not necessarily permanent. These are the types of harm that are most commonly experienced by vulnerable road users, such as cyclists and pedestrians and will attract appropriate court penalties. The changes also increase the minimum automatic licence disqualification periods for culpable driving and negligent driving occasioning death and grievous bodily harm to support a hierarchy of penalties that are proportionate to the consequences of negligent driving in different cases.
Unsafe behaviours on our road network threaten the lives and wellbeing of all members of our community. It is vital that our laws include penalties that are applicable with the road safety risk dangerous driving poses, reflect community expectations and support behavioural change. Those most vulnerable on our roads don’t have the protection of a vehicle around them such as pedestrians and cyclists. Canberran’s are reminded to share the road, road safety is everyone’s responsibility.
