Those who want a go-fast car in South Australia may have to first obtain a go-fast licence and won’t be able to turn off their traction control, under proposed reforms to the state’s road safety laws.
The proposals stem from a 2019 crash that killed a teenager and injured another when a driver lost control of his Lamborghini Huracan. Premier Peter Malinauskas announced the proposed reforms in a press release, two days after the driver was found not guilty of causing death by dangerous driving. After the legislation is drafted, it must be passed by Parliament.
Under the reforms, drivers operating “elite high-powered super sports cars” will require extra driver training, similar to that required for motorcycle or commercial vehicle licences. Drivers accused of killing a person would be banned from holding a licence until their case is resolved; and drivers would not be allowed to disable the traction control in “high-powered vehicles.”
The June 2019 crash involved 37-year-old Alexander Campbell. He had recently purchased the 2016 Lamborghini after it was advertised on an auto sale site for AUD$328,888 (about CDN$295,000) and wrote online that “this has been by far one of the best Supercars I’ve owned.” He installed a plate reading PSYKO on it.
Campbell and his wife were leaving a show-and-shine event around 9:30 p.m. at a shopping mall parking lot. Witnesses said he arrived and left the show “driving normally.” Video filmed inside the car and shown in court showed Campbell disabling the traction control and activating sport mode.
Campbell lost control about three kilometres from the show. The car mounted a curb, struck the two girls on the sidewalk, and hit a post and a tree before crashing into a restaurant. The court heard that Campbell was not impaired and was driving at 53 km/h in a 60-km/h zone. At the scene, Campbell was filmed telling a police officer, “I was accelerating back up to speed and I went to change gear and it just went around… It lost traction and that was it… It’s powerful, it’s not like a normal car.” He said he usually drove in Sport mode with the traction control off, and that the car would slip when its tires were cold.
The State Government is set to bring new laws to Parliament which will target drivers of high powered sports cars.
The changes prompted by Sophia Naismith’s family, who lost their daughter when she was struck and killed by a Lamborghini driver. @ainsleykoch #9News pic.twitter.com/o0KyZBw8lp— 9News Adelaide (@9NewsAdel) August 20, 2022
Although he was acquitted of the more severe charge, Campbell pleaded guilty to driving without due care and faces sentencing, with a maximum of a year in jail and a six-month driving ban.
In other “Down-Under” news, Bank Australia has announced that starting in 2025, it will no longer provide auto loans for fossil-fuel cars and will only finance electric vehicles. Since 2018, the bank has given lower interest rates on loans for low-emissions vehicles; it said it has been carbon-neutral since 2011 and runs on renewable electricity.
In a statement, the bank said that around 43 per cent of Australia’s transport emissions are from passenger vehicles, and EVs are a “ready-to-deploy technology so they can be one of the fastest contributors to Australia meeting its climate goals.” Realizing not everyone can afford a new vehicle, the bank will continue to offer loans on used fossil-fuel vehicles — or, since it’s far from the country’s only bank, buyers may simply get their cash somewhere else.
Keyword: South Australia could require supercar drivers to have special training