Horrific triple fatality accident once again puts Bruce Highway safety in spotlight

Published: July 2, 2024

The horrific crash between a bus and a caravan in north Queensland on Sunday has once again highlighted the inherent dangers that all travellers face every time they head out on the roads.

And it has also reignited concern – and anger – over the state of some parts of the Bruce Highway.

Tragically, three passengers on the bus died at the scene of the accident at Gumlu, north of Bowen, including a woman in her thirties, a woman in her twenties, and a 56-year-old Townsville woman.

Multiple other people were taken to hospital, some with serious injuries. Two men, aged 24 and 23, remain in critical condition.

Remarkably, the elderly couple in the 4WD towing a caravan escaped serious physical injury.

Mackay Whitsunday Forensic Crash Unit officer-in-charge, Sergeant Michael Hollett, told media outlets that initial police investigations indicated the bus had veered into the opposite lane of traffic.

He said the incident unfolded ‘quickly’ and the driver of the 4WD ‘did what he could’ but was unable to prevent the crash.

The impact of the crash forced the van through the windscreen and into the cabin – the van was completely destroyed.

The Daily Mail reports that witnesses praised the elderly male caravanner for driving his vehicle out of the way of the oncoming bus – an action they believe spared the lives of other motorists.

“He was a hero for his actions,” Janice Beavis told the newspaper. “[They, the elderly couple] were behaving safely. The bus hit the van, the driver [of the 4WD] was trying to get away … [he] saved himself and his wife and the mum and three girls travelling behind him.”

There were 33 people on the Greyhound bus involved in the accident on a stretch of the road that has a 100km/h speed limit.

Whitsunday Regional Council Mayor Ry Collins told the ABC that the area of the highway where the bus crashed could be challenging for drivers.

“If you are to drive the road it doesn’t feel like a highway, it feels like a country road,” he said.

And Wayne Donnelly, the owner of the Gumlu Fruit Store, on the Bruce Highway near the scene of the accident told the Townsville Bulletin there had been multiple wrecks along the ‘nightmare’ highway.

He told the paper the state of the highway near where the accident occurred as ‘ordinary’.

“They do new roadworks and it needs redoing within 12 months,” he said.

But he said it wasn’t just the roads.

“It’s not just the roads,” he told the Bulletin. “It’s the drivers, there’s all different types of drivers out there and some are more impatient than others.”

From 2020 to 2023, the Bruce Highway claimed the lives of 134 people. Between the start of this year and April, nine people have been killed.

Grey nomad Pam Beavan told the ABC she simply avoided travelling the Bruce Highway as much as possible.

“I hate travelling the Bruce Highway at the best of times,” she said. “It’s so heavily used by caravans and cars, and [in some parts] it’s only two lanes … it’s not a very safe highway.”

Police said road conditions would form part of the investigation into this latest accident.

  • Do you avoid travelling on the Bruce Highway as much as possible? Comment below.

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Last year we drove along the Capricorn Hway from Barcaldine to Longreach and we found it very bumpy, wavy and deteriorated, Qld lift your game.

Before every Queensland Election we hear promises of upgrading The Bruce but very little action is ever forthcoming unless it is within 100km of Brisbane and years after it is needed.

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