Newell Highway, Mitchell Highway to share in $6 million safety improvements

Member for Dubbo Troy Grant announced $6.245 million for nine projects in the region, including $1.5 million to improve safety on the Newell Highway between Brocklehurst and Coonabarabran.

The safety measures to be installed across the electorate include rumble strips, wider shoulders and wire rope barriers on the roadside.

At the Mitchell Highway and Rawsonville Bridge/North Minore intersection two right turn bays will be installed. Safety measures will also be installed on the Mitchell Highway at Cooba Road.

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Another $1.4 million will be spent on the Mitchell Highway between Narromine and Nyngan.

“We know on our roads, particularly here in country NSW, that our road toll is too high. Two-thirds of the road toll are for country drivers," Mr Grant said.

He said the audio-tactile centre lines, known as rumble strips, would alert people if they’re straying from one lane to another or drifting off the road, enabling them to get back on track before they cause any damage.

“The areas have been chosen because of the high volume of traffic, the landscape and topography of the road itself and what have been identified as key blackspot locations where accidents happen because of fatigue,” the MP said.

“It’s where people may lose a bit of concentration and may drift from one side of the road to the other across lines and these rumble strips give you a pretty quick realisation that you need to get back on track and wake up.”

In areas like the Princes Highway the rumble strips had been proven to work, Mr Grant said.

“There’s other measure that we use like the wire fencing out at Trangie where we had seven deaths in a short amount of time. There’s not one panacea that will be effective, it’s a combination of these different investments and tactics that will ultimately save lives,” he said.

The funding was through Saving Lives on Country Roads initiative.