Centralian Advocate, Friday, February 7, 2014 — 5

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NEWS

New Territory for rookies

Fast food, hot new cars...Another test-drive ‘‘mule’’ has been spotted aroundAlice Springs, no doubt making the most of the openspeed limit trial north of the town. Snapped in theMcDonald’s car park on Wednesday, this disguisedvehicle is believed to be a Hyundai Sonata facelift. Lastweek, the Centralian Advocate captured the first picturesof the first test-drive cars to come to Alice in line with theopen speed limit trial, SUV models from SsangYong.

TRANSPORT REPORTER

Jessica Brown ‘Think some are

forgetting the

Territory was open

speed limited before

Mr Giles came along,

for many moons!

’‘Fuel economy soon

stops people

travelling at lunatic

speeds for any real

length of time

’‘Vast majority of

people in the NT

should have

experience with

derestricted roads as

the limit was only set

to 130km/h on those

roads in 2007

’‘Being 10km/h over

the (old) limit won’t

kill you if you’re

watching where

you’re going

Facebook comments

MORE than 135,000 Territ-orian motorists now havethe chance to legally gettheir ‘‘first taste’’ of drivingabove 130km/h, figuresfrom the Motor VehicleRegistration reveal.

Figures provided by theMVR show there have been135,903 new full licencesissued in the Territory sinceopen speed limits were abol-ished at the start of 2007.

The number of new, firstissue NT licences, in thepast seven years raises ques-tions about the prepared-ness of our car-driving pub-lic to drive responsibly andwithin its limits on the200km open speed limit trialsection of the Stuart High-way north of Alice Springs.

The figures do not includeprobationary licensed mot-orists who have restrictedspeed limits, nor does itaccount for the thousandsof tourists from regionswhere the maximum speedlimit they regularly drive tois much lower than the130km/h Territorians areusually afforded.

Northern Territory PoliceAssociation president VinceKelly expressed concernthat many drivers wouldoverestimate their drivingskills and did not under-stand how quickly thingscould go wrong at highspeeds.

Mr Kelly said ‘‘driving to

conditions’’ was not an abil-ity that was taught to anymotorist.

‘‘I do not believe suchtraining is provided eitheron a voluntary or manda-tory basis,’’ he said.

‘‘I am not sure how onemakes an objective judg-ment of their capability todrive ‘to conditions’.

‘‘I believe that most peopleoverestimate their drivingskills and have limited con-cept of how quickly thingscan go wrong at high speed.

‘‘Even modern vehiclesoften have defects thatmake them vulnerable tomishaps at high speed, in-cluding tyres not suitable tospeed or the conditions.

‘‘High-speed driving issuch an occupational healthand safety risk for policeofficers - there are veryclear policies and restric-tions in relation to urgentduty driving at speed includ-ing for officers with ad-vanced training in pursuitand speed.

‘‘The other safety issue Ithink has been ignored isthat road users who are nottravelling at speeds inexcess of 130km/h could wellunderestimate the speed ofa vehicle coming the otherway - (which is) a recipe fordisaster if overtaking a roadtrain.

‘‘There has also been anover-emphasis on fatalities.

‘‘Injuries from motor ve-hicle crashes cost the indi-vidual, their families andthe community an extraor-

dinary amount, emotionally

and financially.

‘‘Road safety experts allagree that this is bad publicpolicy, despite a statementattributed to the Chief Min-ister to the contrary.

‘‘Speed is a factor in anenormous number of acci-dents.

‘‘The government has saidpeople will be responsiblefor their own actions.

‘‘I argue that it is theresponsibility of govern-ment to put in place roadsafety rules that encourageand foster responsible be-haviour.

‘‘This decision does notfall into that category and Inote reports of people driv-ing at high speed in roadworks being conducted inthe trial area would supportmy view on that.’’

Two people were finedearlier this week for ‘‘driv-ing recklessly’’ in the openlimit zone.

B o t h d r i v e r s w e r estopped, issued with in-fringement notices andfined $600 each for travel-ling 44km/h over themarked speed limit in a roadworks zone south of Ti Tree.

Police spokeswomanRebecca Forrest told the NT

News that police would con-tinue to patrol the openspeed area.

Council Rangers Emma Hall and Steve Rodgers report a decrease in the number of people drinking and campingin the Todd Picture: JUSTIN BRIERTY

River drinking dries upCOUNCIL REPORTER

Sarah Rohweder

THERE has been a drasticdrop in the number ofpeople spoken to by AliceSprings Town Council’sRanger Unit during morn-ing and afternoon river runsin recent weeks.

According to figures pres-ented in a report at theordinary council meetinglast week, a total of 1057individuals either receivedwarnings or official noticeslast year compared to 2586people in 2012.

ASTC Director of Corpor-ate and Community Serv-ices, Craig Catchlove, said

although this was a positivereflection of the rangers’ongoing efforts, there was aspike in the first couple ofweeks in January this year.

‘‘Council saw a massivedrop in the number of of-fenders drinking in publicpaces, primarily the ToddRiver, in December wherenumbers basically hit zero,’’he said.

‘‘However, we noticed an-other spike in the first twoweeks of January wherepeople were caught drinkingin public places and so ourrangers began issuing warn-ing notices instead of actualfines, telling them to movealong. This spike occurred

because people were notable to get back to the towncamps, but when the wetweather passed we sawthem packing up and mov-ing along so the numberthen decreased again.

‘‘The numbers have moret h a n h a l v e d o v e r a12-month period so it’s safeto say the river runs havebeen an amazing success,but we are not taking oureyes off the ball.’’

Mr Catchlove said in-creases in illegal alcoholconsumption in town campswas a result of harshercrackdowns by the rangers.

‘‘What we have noticedduring the morning runs is

that there is certainly evi-dence of alcohol consump-tion, usually from the nightbefore, but there is no oneactually drinking at thesetimes and so numbers herehave decreased,’’ he said.

‘‘However, we conductruns each afternoon along-side the police and generallycatch people in the act ofconsuming alcohol, so this iswhere we issue the mostinfringements. We are notgoing to hide the fact thatillegal consumption of al-cohol in town camps is aresult of our crackdown ondrinking in public placesbecause they are linked.’’