South Australian Consolidated Acts South Australian Consolidated Acts (1) A person must not
drive a vehicle without due care or attention or without reasonable
consideration for other persons using the road.
(2) If a court
convicts a person of an offence against this section that is an aggravated
offence, the following provisions apply:
(a) the
maximum penalty for the offence is 12 months imprisonment; and
(b) the
court must order that the person be disqualified from holding or obtaining a
driver's licence for such period, being not less than 6 months, as the court
thinks fit; and
(c) the
disqualification prescribed by paragraph (b) cannot be reduced or
mitigated in any way or be substituted by any other penalty or sentence.
(3) For the purposes
of this section, an aggravated offence is—
(a) an
offence that caused the death of, or serious harm to, a person; or
(b) an
offence committed in any of the following circumstances:
(i)
the offender committed the offence in the course of
attempting to escape pursuit by a police officer;
(ii)
the offender was, at the time of the offence, driving a
vehicle knowing that he or she was disqualified, under the law of this State
or another State or Territory of the Commonwealth, from holding or obtaining a
driver's licence or that his or her licence was suspended by notice given
under this Act;
(iii)
the offender committed the offence while there was
present in his or her blood a concentration of .08 grams or more of
alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood;
(iv)
the offender was, at the time of the offence, driving a
vehicle in contravention of section 45A or 47.
(4) If a person is
charged with an aggravated offence against this section, the circumstances
alleged to aggravate the offence must be stated in the instrument of charge.
(4a) It is a defence
to a charge of an offence against this section for the defendant to prove that
he or she was, at the time of the offence—
(a)
carrying out duties as an emergency worker; and
(b)
acting in accordance with the directions of his or her employing authority;
and
(c)
acting reasonably in the circumstances as he or she believed them to be.
(5) In this
section—
"emergency worker" means a police officer or a person who is an
emergency worker as defined by the regulations for the purposes of this
section;
"employing authority" means—
(a) in
relation to a police officer—the Commissioner of Police; or
(b) in
relation to a person who is an emergency worker as defined by the regulations
for the purposes of this section—the person defined by the regulations
as the employing authority for that person;
"serious harm" means—
(a) harm
that endangers, or is likely to endanger, a person's life; or
(b) harm
that consists of, or is likely to result in, loss of, or serious and
protracted impairment of, a part of the body or a physical or mental function;
or
(c) harm
that consists of, or is likely to result in, serious disfigurement.