They’re the three crashes, each coming in vastly different circumstances, that have police reiterating the road safety message for users of the Newell Highway.
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Five people have died in a 115km stretch of the road, north of Dubbo, in just eight months, with last Tuesday’s horrific accident that claimed the lives of Hannah Ferguson and Reagen Skinner the latest tragic example of what can go wrong.
The crash, which saw a prime mover run up the back of a queue of vehicles stopped at roadworks, happened just three kilometres from the scene of an accident back in May which claimed the lives of two brothers from Queensland.
It was 3.30am on May 6, 2017, when the boys, aged 12 and 9, were passengers in a vehicle that was hit when a southbound truck is alleged to have crossed to the wrong side of the road three kilometres north of Brocklehurst.
Five people were travelling in the four-wheel drive, with the siblings’ parents treated at the scene for minor injuries and a younger brother, aged four at the time, flown to a Sydney hospital with internal injuries.
On December 2, a Victorian-based truck driver was killed when the semi-trailer he was driving slid off the side of the road 4.4km north of the Gundair Road intersection near Tooraweenah.
He was 10 days short of his 35th birthday when his life was taken, police believing he failed to drive to the slippery conditions while descending the area known as Tap Hill about 2.30pm.
Police have put that accident down simply to driver error.
And of course last Tuesday, Miss Ferguson and Mr Skinner were tragically killed when their vehicle suffered the brunt of the contact in the tragic seven-car pile-up 15km north of Dubbo.
Eleven others were injured to varying degrees in the accident, which rescuers and emergency crews have conceded is among the worst road incidents they have attended.
Statistics from the Roads and Maritime Service show that an average of 2810 vehicles use the Newell north of Dubbo every day, with heavy vehicles making up 27 per cent of that number.
But police have had enough, with Orana Mid-Western Police District investigations manager Detective Sergeant Mark Meredith saying last week’s accident, on the heels of the other two, should serve as a warning for users of the road.
“What happened last Tuesday was horrific, just tragic, and it is going to take time for the Crash Investigation Unit to properly determine what happened,” Det Sgt Meredith said.
“Unfortunately it’s been happening a fair bit on that stretch of the Newell north of Dubbo in the last year or so, and sadly people that have done nothing wrong have paid the ultimate price in some instances.
“If you look at each of these accidents, they each have different circumstances and they show how quickly things can turn tragic. People need to remember that.
“Sometimes we hop in our cars or trucks and just think we’re going to make it from A to B. It only takes a split second for something to go wrong.”
Police know there is no silver bullet solution to the issue. Quite simply, it comes down to driver behaviour.
And while trucks have been involved in all three of the most recent accidents, Det Sgt Meredith was quick point out it’s not just a trucking issue.
“There are a lot of truck drivers that use that highway every day, and there’s also a lot of very responsible truckies out there,” he said.
“But whether you drive a truck or a car, it comes down to being aware of your surroundings, planning your trip to take breaks into account, and driving to the conditions.
“Without commenting on the incidents specifically, when you get highways and long haul trips there’s always going to be elements of fatigue that kick in, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re in a car or a truck.
“Sometimes as drivers we’re guilty of thinking we’ll push through to the next town because it’s not far away, and we’ll stop there. If that’s the case then the time for stopping may well have been half an hour ago.
“I’m not into the politics of what can be done to try and make the roads safer by widening or separating traffic, so it comes down to taking responsibility for ourselves and other road users.
“We’re never going to eradicate accidents unfortunately, but by being attentive to our own behaviour and the behaviour of others, hopefully we can turn things around so we don’t have a spate of accidents like we’ve had over the last eight or nine months near Dubbo.