The South Australian Opposition is calling on the State Government to offer a $50,000 reward for anyone who provides information on a series of incidents in which rocks have been thrown at cars on the Southern Expressway.
However, the Government has rejected the proposal.
There were three attacks last week, and then yesterday afternoon a rock was thrown at a car near Majors Road at O'Halloran Hill, smashing its back left window.
Labor transport spokesman Tom Koutsantonis said it was becoming an epidemic.
"This is a catastrophe waiting to happen if someone dies or is critically injured because of rock-throwing," he said.
"We have to ask ourselves: Did we do enough to stop it, have we done everything we possibly can?'
"If someone died, it would be a disaster for the southern suburbs, for people to have that type of anxiety driving home to and from work with their kids in the car thinking about [how] someone might through a rock on their windscreen causing irreparable damage."
Last February, then-transport minister Stephen Mullighan said he would look into greater rewards to tackle such attacks.
In November, the Government issued a tender for CCTV on the Southern Expressway to prevent rock-throwing incidents, however its has not yet been installed.
Just last Thursday, motorist Lauren Mangelsdorf had a rock thrown at her car while she was driving along the Southern Expressway with her two-year-old son, near the Moore Road bridge at Reynella in Adelaide's southern suburbs.
She said she was travelling home at 100 kilometres per hour when a rock the size of a fist hit the bonnet of her car and bounced up into the windscreen.
"I was thankful that I wasn't injured but I went through all the 'what ifs?'," she said earlier this week.
"What if I had swerved my vehicle? What if it had gone through the side where my son was sitting?
"It's very brazen... and if we're all driving along the expressway, we're all very vulnerable."
No reward to be offered
Premier Steven Marshall today rejected the need to offer a reward.
He said the Government had already acted to install mesh over the most accessible roads over the expressway.
"The reality is rock throwing on the Southern Expressway didn't start with a change of government — it's existed for a long period of time," Mr Marshall said.
The Liberal Party committed to "immediately" installing grate-style screens three days before the March 17 election.
On Monday, Transport Minister Stephan Knoll said the Government was moving quickly to design screens to install on bridges, with CCTV and fencing also to be installed within weeks.
"I'm advised that SAPOL [South Australia Police] have increased their presence around this area and we are getting on and dealing with this problem," Mr Knoll said.
SA Police Senior Constable Matt Brown urged the public to immediately report "if you see one of these incidents occur or suspicious activity near the Southern Expressway, even if it's just people just standing in the scrubland by the side of the expressway where they certainly shouldn't be".
