After the tragic death of teenage girl, South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas responded by moving to introduce legislation before the end of the year to establish a new licensing scheme for drivers of elite high-powered sports cars. The proposed legislation would also ban drivers accused of killing a person from holding a license until their case is resolved, and prohibit the disabling of traction control in high-powered vehicles.

At first glance, these proposals come from the best intentions – preventing a tragedy of this kind from ever happening again. But digging deeper into the practical policy implementation of them, serious questions arise.

Firstly, there is a question of what constitutes a high-powered vehicle. Power to weight ratio will come to mind and so does the speed a vehicle takes to go from 0-100km/h. A Lamborghini, Ferrari or McLaren are striking visual images representing high performance capability, but when a baseline Tesla Model 3 claims 0-100km/h in 3.3 seconds, suddenly government appetite for the transition to electric vehicles becomes under pressure. And how would the government monitor and consistently define modified vehicles or classic cars?

Secondly and more concerning is the practical implementation of how banning the disabling of traction control in one State can be realistically enforced. For example, a Toyota RAV4 family SUV has this feature included, but how could a police officer reasonably detect, let alone a court find that a motorist knowingly disabled traction control? What would this mean for interstate motorists driving into South Australia?

Ultimately, the MTA’s view is that traction control standards must be nationally consistent in our Australian Design Rules rather than being determined at a state level.

Looking at prevention is a worthy exercise. In the tragic case of the teenage girl, the court heard that when the vehicle was being serviced, the driver of the vehicle was warned on a number of occasions regarding the condition of the tyre tread and the need for the tyres to be replaced. With South Australia lagging behind the rest of the country in regards to vehicle safety inspections, all options should be on the table.

Pleasingly, the State Government has reached out to the MTA and its members for advice as part of a roundtable discussion on reform options. As always, we remain ready to work with Government to ensure balanced and sensible reforms which can generate real outcomes.