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Parliamentary Questions


Question On Notice No. 1393 asked in the Legislative Council on 12 June 2018 by Hon Martin Aldridge

Question Directed to the: Minister for Environment representing the Minister for Road Safety
Parliament: 40 Session: 1
Tabled Paper No: 1599- View tabled paper


Question

I refer to the Minister for Road Safety's reference in the Legislative Assembly on 10 May to a 'recent coroner's report' as justification for her direction of the Road Safety Council to expend Road Trauma Trust Account funds on a replacement police helicopter, and I ask:
(a) will the Minister please identify the Coroner's report that the Minister referred to on 10 May;
(b) will the Minister please table a copy of the report and identify the specific findings or recommendations supporting her claim;
(c) in relation to police pursuits, will the Minister please identify for each of the last 10 years the number of fatalities that have arisen from such pursuits in each year;
(d) of those identified in (c), will the Minister, where possible, identify the nature of the involvement in the pursuit i.e. police driver, police passenger, pursued vehicle driver, pursued vehicle passenger, bystander, unrelated vehicle driver or passenger etc.; and
(e) for each of the past 10 years, will the Minister please identify the number of fatalities and separately the number of serious injuries that have occurred on Western Australian roads?

Answered on 14 August 2018

(a)-(b)

The Western Australia Police Force advise that the State Coroner held an inquest into the deaths of Sean Duncan Barrett and Kuldeep Singh; Gavin Wayne Fryer; Jordan Damon Rundell; Kyra Marjorie Narrier; and Hassan El Bakdadi in March and April 2017. The deaths occurred following an attempted intercept or an evade police intercept driving incident (pursuit) and were investigated at one inquest to allow for consideration of the operation and effectiveness of the Western Australia Police Force Emergency Driving Policy and Guidelines.

The State Coroner released her findings from the joint inquest and made only one formal recommendation: (see tabled paper No.  )

‘I recommend that the Police Airwing be allocated greater resources for the acquisition and operation of an additional helicopter and to this end, that consideration be given to allocating appropriate funding to the Western Australia Police Service.’

There have been forty two fatalities associated with vehicles evading police pursuit since July 2008, eight of which were in 2016/17. Of the forty two fatalities, twenty five were the driver of the pursued vehicle, ten were passengers in the pursued vehicle, three were drivers of unrelated vehicles, and four were passengers in unrelated vehicles. Since July 2008, 1892 people have died on WA roads, with a further 2542 seriously injured. Annual figures are available from the Road Safety Commission website.

Data is provided for crashes recorded as having occurred between 01 January 2008 and 05 July 2018. Figures include only crashes that meet the definition of a fatal or serious injury road crash. That is, a crash which:

  • does not occur on private property or on a public road that has been temporarily closed;
  • has at least one moving vehicle involved;
  • does not involve deliberate intent; and
  • results in at least one fatality or serious injury to a road user.