The prospect of a tired or inattentive oncoming driver drifting onto the wrong side of a narrow country road and into their path is one which fills many grey nomads with dread.
And with good reason. Many fatal accidents are caused this way.
In Victoria, the authorities have had enough. They are spending $18.5 million to build a wire safety barrier down the middle of a 10-kilometre stretch of the Goulburn Valley Highway between Yea and Molesworth where eight people have died and 13 have been seriously injured in the five years to March 2015. Most of these accidents were caused by drivers crossing to the wrong side of the road.
Samantha Cockfield from Victoria’s Transport Accident Commission told the Age newspaper the project was a response to the ‘dreadful trauma record of the road’.
“We’re designing an energy absorbing system so that even if people do come off the road they end up in something that can absorb their energy,” she said. “In Sweden they’ve been doing it for well over a decade and it’s proven incredibly effective, reducing crashes by at least 85%.”
Nathan Mullane, VicRoads’ acting regional director for north-eastern Victoria, said the project was intended to eliminate ”as far as practicable the chance of someone having a head-on crash, whether they be distracted, fatigued, or taking some other driving action that puts them into oncoming traffic”.
I personally think its a good idea as I tow a van. However I do have friends who ride motorbikes and I know they hate the idea. Its a difficult one, I feel everyone just needs to stop and have a rest more regularly.
It will definitely stop the morons from overtaking when not safe to do so
It will certainly stop the impatient ones from overtaking in dangerous places.