A caravan left the road and flipped on the Bruce Highway just north of the Cardwell ranges this afternoon.
The Townsville Bulletin reports that Joanne Houghton was following behind ex-husband Craig McCallum, who was driving her newly repaired SUV towing the just-purchased caravan to test it out on a planned trip from Cairns to just south of Townsville.
Ms Houghton told the Townsville Bulletin that Mr McCallum had picked up the SUV from a Cairns mechanic.
He then collected her and the caravan from where she had been staying in Innisfail before the ill-fated leg of the journey to just past Townsville.
Emergency services attended the scene. PIC: Cizza
“He’s come this morning to pick me up at Innisfail and I said to him, ‘do you want to have a go at driving the van and I can drive behind you and you can get a feel for how it is and you tell me if it feels like there are any dramas’,” she told the Bulletin. “He said, ‘it feels pretty good, I’m really impressed with it, the car’s doing great’ but it was when we got to here, that bridge there … the caravan started to sway … and then all of a sudden it … flipped.”
Multiple emergency crews responded to the accident.
Ms Houghton said she was planning a solo caravan trip around Australia. She told the Bulletin she would not be dissuaded from completing her trip, saying she still had a smaller caravan in Cairns as well as a bus that she had driven from Melbourne to Cairns last year.
“So I’m probably jumping in the 12-seater bus with my dog,” she said.
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What is it about the Bruce Hwy and caravans.
It seems that there are more accidents involving Van’s on that piece of road than the rest of the country put together.
Is it that Queenslanders are such woeful drivers, or perhaps people not able to adjust their speed and driving to conditions?
I have travelled the full length of the Bruce with a large van on the back and for the life of me I cannot work out why there are so many accidents on this Hwy.
Correct! Qld drivers are by far the worst drivers in Aust. I also drive the Bruce every year TO THE CONDITIONS and have no problems. Also noticed there are far less more police patrols here than anywhere less
If caravanners drive to conditions, then other road users become impatient and try to overtake when not safe. The trucks try to push you to a faster speed than you feel comfortable driving and the abusive language hurled by truckers at caravanners can be quite intimidating. The Bruce Hwy is not fit for the volume of traffic and should be dual carriageway.