The NSW Roads Minister Suggested Electrocuting Truck Drivers Was A Solution To Road Fatalities
The Transport Workers' Union has called the minister "heartless, arrogant and completely incompetent".
The NSW roads minister, Melinda Pavey, has responded to a horrific spate of road fatalities by suggesting implementing technology which delivers an electric shock to truck drivers who look away from the road.
Yes, you read that right. In an interview broadcast on an ABC Radio News bulletin this morning, Pavey said “technology will be key to stopping further deaths and injury” on the road, and added that “the technology now is so advanced, a driver can be driving and get an electric shock if they look away from the windscreen for more than two seconds.”
The Transport Workers’ Union of NSW have released a statement slamming Pavey’s comments as “heartless, arrogant and completely incompetent”, and calling for the government to exercise “necessary shared responsibility” for recent increases in road fatalities.
In only 24 hours, five people in NSW have been killed in three truck-related crashes. Rather than address the extreme and unfair working conditions that are causing truck deaths, NSW Roads Minister @melindapaveyMP has seriously suggested *electrocuting drivers behind the wheel*. pic.twitter.com/ZGmzJrEAFF
— TWU NSW (@TWUNSW) January 17, 2018
Richard Olsen, State Secretary of the Transport Workers’ Union of NSW, said that “instead of blaming drivers, the minister must ensure that all levels of the supply chain take responsibility. Her continued lack of leadership on this issue, while people continue to die on our roads, is shameful.”
The union says that “extreme and unfair working conditions that the NSW Government still refuses to address” play a key role in causing road fatalities, and has been calling for the Federal Government to re-establish a national road safety watchdog that was scrapped in 2016. That watchdog, the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, was initially created after a report by the National Transport Commission in 2008 found that truck drivers’ pay was linked to road safety, supporting the union’s claims.
Truckies 15 times more likely to die on job than any other workers: Safe Work Australia. 330 people lose lives in heavy vehicle incidents across the country each year.
Yet Turnbull govt scrapped Gillard's road safety remuneration tribunal. Business profits before lives.— Urban Wronski (@UrbanWronski) January 17, 2018
In a press release yesterday, Minister Pavey opted to just urge people to drive more safely, with no mention of electric shocks. Her comments today come two days after she was cited as the source in a since-deleted 7 News story falsely claiming that NSW would not follow Queensland’s lead on gender-free driver’s licences. These comments were inaccurate as NSW has already had gender-free licences for many years.
Updated January 18: Minister Pavey responded to Junkee’s comment request to say her intention was simply to promote the NSW Government’s increased investment in research on the latest technologies to reduce deaths and injuries on our road network. She clarified that the technology she was referring to does not actually electrocute drivers but simply vibrates their seat, and said she was “disgusted and appalled that today of all days the Transport Workers Union would play this kind of politics”.
Minister Pavey did not respond to Junkee’s comment requests regarding her statement on gender-free licences.