Submissions

RACV has used this market research together with our expert analysis to provide this submission on the future planning of Melbourne and Victoria. Efficient, safe and affordable transport continues to be a key concern for our members and an ongoing challenge for Melbourne as it continues to grow.

On 23 June 2011, as part of the passage of the legislation, the Senate agreed that its Economics References Committee would review the operation of Part 1 of Schedule 5 within 12 months of the Part's commencement.

RACV believes that traffic laws, vehicle standards, driver licensing and traffic management practices should, wherever possible, be uniform across all jurisdictions. This does not mean however, that changes should be delayed particularly where they have potential life-saving benefits.

The scope of the 2011 VicRoads Review of Speed Limits comprises an investigation into a number of areas including routes with large numbers of speed zone changes; opportunities to reduce the number of speed limit changes; aspects of School Speed Zones, including layout and location, times of operation and days of operation; strip shopping centre times; speed limits in town centres; use and application of advisory speed limits; minimum length of speed zones; consistency of speed limits under similar conditions.

Motorcyclists are at much higher risk than drivers of other vehicles. They do not have the level of protection and stability that car occupants have and therefore bear the full brunt of a collision and subsequently suffer more serious injuries and likelihood of death.

The Road Safety Act Review is primarily a legal and technical exercise intended to simplify and clarify road safety law in Victoria.

In this submission, RACV has focussed on the level of road funding to Victoria, key issues in current Federal-State funding arrangements and how they might be improved.

RACV supports the development of a more strategic approach to overcome the legal and institutional barriers to improve the take-up of intelligent transport systems across Australia.

Review the Australian road rules and vehicle standards rules.

RACV is supportive of the Government’s plan to set aside corridors for the Outer Metropolitan Ring and E6 projects. We do not believe that the Government should wait years to start work on these and other important transport links as detailed in our submission. RACV also expects safety to be at the forefront of the road design.

RACV is supportive of the Regional Rail Link and believes that work on this project should begin immediately. We urge the State Government to fast-track the planning and delivery of this project since funding has already been committed by the Federal and State Governments. We note, however, that much more still needs to be done to improve transport in Melbourne’s outer west in addition to this critical link, and this is detailed in our submission.

This RACV submission is intended to supplement the AAA submission.  It describes recent RACV research which is relevant to the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference, and expands on the AAA submission to highlight critical public transport infrastructure needs of Victoria.

RACV believes that the State Government's decision to provide a high level oversight of the East-West corridor was a constructive start, but it now needs to be considered in the wider Melbourne context.

RACV believe there are inadequacies in the current dispute resolution system that can result in car buyers experiencing major detriment. These include massive disparity in resources between consumers and manufacturers/dealers, lack of expert knowledge within decision making bodies, and difficulties in correctly determining the cause of a problem.

RACV has identified a number of key issues at the strategic and regional/tactical levels which we believe are relevant to the East-West Link Needs Assessment. Stemming from this we have identified a number of opportunities which must be explored.