Wednesday, 19 March 2025

Economy and Infrastructure Committee

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

Dylan WIGHT (Tarneit) (10:21): It gives me great pleasure to rise this morning and make a contribution to the committee reports, and in particular the report that I would like to make my contribution on is the inquiry into the impact of road safety behaviours on vulnerable road users, an inquiry undertaken, I believe, at the beginning of last year and the end of 2023 by the Economy and Infrastructure Committee, which I am proud to be a member of. I would like to just acknowledge the chair of that committee, the member for Bellarine, who did an absolutely amazing job as part of this inquiry – all members did. I would like to acknowledge two members beside me, the member for Glen Waverley and the member for Pascoe Vale, as well as the member for Kew and the member for Narracan, both former members of this committee.

What we found out as part of this inquiry, through an overwhelming mountain of evidence, is that road behaviours have changed significantly since COVID in particular, and they are yet to change back. We heard evidence from users of active transport, in the main cyclists, from all over Victoria. We did some regional hearings in Shepparton as well. The member for Shepperton is also on this committee, and I could not believe that literally every single person in Shepparton knows who the member for Shepparton is – every single person. Just walk down the street: ‘Hi, Kim. How are you going?’ Just everyone knew her. It was quite impressive, I must say, to be frank.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Correct titles.

Dylan WIGHT: Sorry, Deputy Speaker. The member for Shepparton is all right. I am just giving her a shout-out.

We heard an overwhelming amount of evidence from those vulnerable road users, in particular cyclists in this case, from both regional Victoria and also metropolitan Melbourne, who frankly were just dead-set scared to use the road on their bikes. In an environment where we are trying to encourage active transport, trying to encourage people – both adults, kids and adolescents – to get out of the car and to use active transport, being genuinely fearful on the road because of the behaviours of motorists is just not good enough. We heard a mountain of evidence from community groups, from cycling groups and from schools about the fact that we just need better infrastructure to protect our vulnerable road users.

The committee also noted, in line with that, a massive decline in responsible behaviours among road users and among drivers in Melbourne’s metropolitan areas. In noting this, the government supports recommendations 54 through 56. In fact the only recommendation as part of this report that the government did not accept was one around the coroner, and that is simply because we are already doing that. It was just some overlap that we had there. So the government accepted every recommendation within this report.

The decline in responsible behaviours among road users is incredibly troubling. It is incredibly troubling when we are, as a government and a community, consistently and continuously grappling with a road toll that is consistently too high. Making sure that we are putting things in place to curb this behaviour both through education but also through enforcement as well is incredibly important.

In terms of enforcement, we looked at the new infrastructure that we have to catch road users that are using their mobile device whilst driving, which is something that we heard through evidence from Victoria Police is significantly increasing and has been since COVID. That is a really good example of infrastructure that has worked and at the time had caught, I think, over 300 or 400 people doing that. (Time expired)