General News
9 November, 2023
Renewed call for action
Gnotuk residents are pleading for government action at a notorious intersection following a spate of crashes in recent years. The intersection of the Princes Highway and Darlington-Camperdown Road has been the site of a number of serious road...
Gnotuk residents are pleading for government action at a notorious intersection following a spate of crashes in recent years.
The intersection of the Princes Highway and Darlington-Camperdown Road has been the site of a number of serious road incidents.
The highway rests on a low-visibility corner, with the rail line running parallel to the highway between turnoffs to both Castle Carey Road, the most direct route to and from Mortlake, and Old Geelong Road, which bypasses Camperdown for traffic flowing to and from Ballarat.
The nature of the roads creates a choke point for four major flowthroughs of traffic coalescing to an intersection on a winding 100-kilometre highway.
Western Victoria MP Bev McArthur has been among those calling for action at the dangerous stretch, both as an MP and during her time as a Corangamite Shire councillor.
She said she was concerned continued inaction could have fatal consequences.
“I don’t want a serious fatal accident to occur before action takes place,” Mrs McArthur said.
“Let’s be preventative with road safety; we need this intersection made safe for the people that live here and the motorists using it.
“At the moment it is totally unsafe for everybody, and the government have got to do something about this.
“Regional Roads Victoria don’t need to wait until somebody is killed.”
Gnotuk’s Steven Kinnersly is among those who have experienced the dangers of the stretch of road after he sustained four splinter fractures in his right foot following a crash at the intersection over the Grand Final weekend in September.
Still in a walking boot and on crutches, Mr Kinnersly said he had turned on to the Princes Highway from his nearby property and was travelling towards Camperdown when a vehicle pulled out from Darlington-Camperdown Road in front of him.
“I was in my old Landcruiser so I hadn’t even got up to 100 kilometres yet or it could have been worse,” he said.
“It all happened in two seconds but I remember thinking they were going to stop but they just kept coming.
“I braked and veered right, colliding with their front quarter bumper, and because I’d braced myself when braking the impact broke my foot in four places.
“Thankfully the driver and passengers in the other vehicle avoided injury as their airbags deployed, but I was stuck in my car waiting for emergency services to arrive.”
Mr Kinnersly said he believed speed should be reduced around the corner before the worst happens.
“If I had been doing 100 kilometres it would have been worse, and if it was a truck carrying a double-B load it could have gone straight over,” he said.
“I know a lot of people in the area consider it to be a dangerous section of road or have a story about a near miss there.”
A range of solutions have been suggested to improve safety on the road, including lowering speed limits around the corner, widening the roadway to create merge lanes and installed automated speed signs which can detect traffic and temporarily lower speeds as cars approach.
Corangamite Shire mayor Ruth Gstrein said there had been concern for the safety of motorists at Gnotuk for more than a decade.
“It’s about time this is fixed, and fixed properly,” she said.
“We’ve got to be mindful that people live on this intersection, and every time they drive out of their driveway they are basically taking their lives in to their hands.
“I appreciate there is probably not the dollars to do a major reconstruction at the intersection but there are treatments which can be done to make it safer for both the people who live here and the people who travel through.”
A number of residents also face difficulty when turning out on to the highway from Gnotuk Lane, with limited visibility to oncoming traffic.
Gnotuk’s Pam Bateman said she often heard horns blaring from trucks trying to avoid collisions at the intersection.
“My husband has had to call Triple Zero a few times over the years,” she said.
“We have called for action previously.
“I think people thought we were just complaining, but we know how to navigate the intersection, my biggest concern is for people who are travelling through that don’t know.”
Chris Bateman said he had seen around five major incidents occur at the intersection in the past few years.
“It’s a regular thing, but it’s also the near misses,” he said.
“Especially around holidays and long weekends, you’ll hear trucks blaring their horns because someone has pulled out.”
Camperdown’s Gerard Loving said he was involved in an accident around three years ago which left him with a hefty bill.
“I was coming home towards Camperdown as I normally would, and a van pulled out from Darlington-Camperdown Road,” he said.
“I saw it and thought he was stopping, but he’s then pulled out in front of me – nowhere to go, not a thing I could do, so I just had to take it on.
“It wrote my car off, which hadn’t even done 80,000 kilometres, and sure I had insurance but the replacement value of my car was $40,000 and I only got paid out $19,000.
“You add in all the extras not covered by insurance and it cost me over $25,000, and I was not deemed at fault.”
Mrs McArthur said she would raise the issue in Parliament next week.
