Fee hike from $300 to $25,000 has been branded heavy-handed by the tourism industry
It’s a crime many South Australians have committed: A traffic offence in a work vehicle. But these Fleurieu employers are set to pay a $25,000 penalty — up from $300 under the new fine structure — to prevent an employee from losing their licence.
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New $25,000 fines for bosses whose staff are caught speeding on one of the state’s busiest highways have been labelled as “heavy-handed” by the state’s peak tourism lobby.
SA Tourism Industry Council chief executive officer Shaun de Bruyn has told the Sunday Mail the fines will hurt his industry after a small bus tour operator has been forced to choose between losing a loyal staff member or paying the $25,000 fine.
Tourism operators Dallas and Nikki Coull — who own and operate bus tours to the Barossa and McLaren Vale wine regions and Victoria’s Great Ocean Road — were issued with the fine after one of their drivers received a speeding penalty.
“At first I was looking at the figure trying to work out where the decimal point was,” Mr Coull told the Sunday Mail.
“It wasn’t until I called the fines call centre when the poor lady confirmed the fine was indeed $26,096. I think she was as upset as I was.”
In May the State Government introduced increased penalties for heavy vehicles travelling on the South-Eastern Freeway.
Truck and bus drivers caught exceeding the 60km/h speed limits on the downtrack from Crafers to the intersection of Portrush, Cross and Glen Osmond roads face fine of $1,036 plus six demerit points and an automatic six month licence disqualification for a first offence.
Employers of the drivers face an expiation fee of $25,000 if they do not nominate the driver of the vehicle.
Mr Coull’s bus driver was caught travelling at 73 kilometres an hour thinking his bus fell under the 4.5 tonne threshold, meaning he could travel up to 90 km/h.
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Mr de Bruyn told the Sunday Mail the penalties are too harsh.
“The state government talks about enabling and supporting business to driving economic growth in the visitor economy,” he said.
“This heavy-handed fine does the opposite, either a driver become immediately unemployable or this small family business is under financial stress for several years to come.”
Mr Coull said his employee thought he was doing 17km under the speed limit.
“He normally drives a slightly smaller bus that isn’t subject to this new law,” he said.
“Of course as a small family business owner we value our employees, and also feel in-part responsible for not making sure he knew the new legislation.
“It’s just not a fair for him or his family, the automatic six-month ban which he’d incur would render him unemployed.”
“The other issue is we would need to find and train a new guide which is very time consuming and costly.
“This is a terrible situation and simply kicking the misery down the road to the next person just isn’t fair.”
Infrastructure minister Stephan Knoll disagreed with Mr de Bruyn.
“The intention of these laws is to help save lives on our roads and were recommend by the Coroner after horrific incidents in which out of control heavy vehicles claimed innocent lives,” Mr Knoll said.
“We make no apologies for adopting the Coroner’s recommendations that will help make our roads safer and hopefully help prevent another tragic accident at the bottom the South Eastern Freeway.”