Community
4 October, 2024
Tackling the big road issues
CLOSE to 100 residents from the townships of Derrinallum, Lismore and Darlington came together at the Derrinallum Hall to discuss a means of addressing road safety issues last Wednesday evening.
Residents and representatives of the progress associations of the three townships turned out to hear a strategy of how to have their road safety issues addressed.
Guest speakers included Member for Polwarth Richard Riordan, Mitch Prewett from Lismore, and Federal Member of Wannon Dan Tehan, who phoned in from Inverleigh.
Derrinallum Progress Association president Kevin Molesworth, who had called the meeting, said his constant pressure on VicRoads had succeeded in getting lines refreshed on the road in Derrinallum, but he still wanted to help the three towns get their safety issues addressed.
He said one idea is to lower the speed limit across the three townships.
“If you make it 50km/h, they’re less likely to do 75km/h because they’re going to lose their license,” Mr Molesworth said.
“At 60km/h, they can sit on 85km/h going through town, and I think a lot of them do, and the worse they’re going to have is a fine.
“It’s relevant, dropping it down to 50km/h.”
Mr Prewett, who is a police officer but was not speaking in an official capacity, said speed was among Lismore’s primary issues.
“It’s too common, happens too often, and there have been significant issues with rollovers of trucks on that entrance to Lismore coming from Geelong,” he said.
“The speed limit is still 60km/h, and people are coming through it at a much higher rate than that.
“It’s a matter of time before a much more serious collision occurs.”
While Lismore and Derrinallum share the difficulties with drivers not obeying the speed limit through town, Mr Molesworth said his main concern was for Darlington.
“My main concern is Darlington – I think there’s a big safety issue there, so I’m pushing the barrow for them,” he said.
“If I’ve got to push that from the perspective of the Progress Association in Derrinallum, I will, because we use the pub.”
Darlington Community Group’s Trish Wynd said Darlington residents have already started with their campaign for change, with a petition with 50 signatures, resident letters and graphic photos of accidents being posted out this week.
“They’ve all gone off to eight different mail drop offs,” she said.
“Hopefully we’ll get some action from getting those sent off to different ministers and authorities.
“The request was put that we’d like 60km/h put through the town, with some pre-warning like ‘60 ahead’ on either and 60km/h all the way through and perhaps a ‘truck entering’ sign.
“We feel that, if the speed was a bit slower, people would have reaction time when we don’t have slip lanes in town.”
For Derrinallum resident Carrie Miller, the primary road safety issue in Derrinallum is driver courtesy and directional travel.
She said there were reports of drivers travelling the wrong way on the highway, treating the highway and service lane in town as a two-lane highway.
“The fact that we’ve got all of one side of that highway is all residences - it’s a safety concern,” Ms Miller said.
“The lines have taken care of a fair whack of our problems – I would like to see directional arrows still – but I do think the lines will make a big difference.
“That’s everyone’s driving thing – we just don’t want to see people die.
“Our elderly can’t cross the road – our kids can’t cross the road, not safely.”
Mr Tehan offered the townships a petition to ensure the issues were addressed.
Mr Riordan said Mr Tehan was “thrilled” to be able to phone in and was “keen” on participating.
“There’s an election coming up in under 12 months for him, and he’s very keen to understand what some of the issues are that he can be raising directly with the Federal Government, and the Federal Government on a road like the Hamilton Highway helps supply funds for that,” he said.
“He’ll be keen to do what he can to promote a safer Hamilton Highway through the Corangamite Shire.”
Mr Riordan said he was “thrilled” to come along as well, having been invited by the community in previous months.
“The condition and safety on the Hamilton Highway are a really important issue for Polwarth,” he said.
“The Hamilton Highway is my electorate’s second-busiest main road – it’s got a lot of important communities along it.
“When the community constantly is seeking just the basics, which is to have enough support to make sure people are abiding by the road laws, then it’s simply not good enough that people have to go and call 100 people to a community meeting to get them to get enough support for it.”
Mr Molesworth said attendance on the night was bigger than he expected.
“The attendance was good, which means there’s a lot of concerned people – every person was here because they’re concerned of there being a fatality,” he said.
“My father-in-law used to run across that highway, playing chicken with the trucks – he couldn’t see 10 feet in front of him, but he had to go to the shops.
“He lived on the other side of the highway, so he’d run across it hoping he didn’t get run over.
“It’s not safe with the way they drive through.”
Mr Molesworth said he hoped the community took away two things from the meeting – ensuring they put in multiple complaints about the roads, even if they differ from other people’s complaints, and keeping reference numbers for all VicRoads correspondence.
“I’m not making it my issue – my issue is everyone getting what they want,” he said.
“Whatever they perceive to be a problem, they’ve got to address their problems – they’ve got to send that in.”