May 1, 2012
Member for Gippsland East, Tim Bull has announced that works on a $4.3 million project to combat driver fatigue along the Princes Highway between Stratford and Bairnsdale are drawing to a close.
“The majority of the works are now finished, with the exception of large overhead electronic message signs to be installed later this year and some further line-marking upgrades,” Mr Bull said.
“A number of traditional road safety treatments have been installed in conjunction with new innovative measures, to cut the high number of crashes on this section of the highway that have been largely attributed to fatigue.”
Mr Bull said between 2005 and the end of 2010 there were 15 recorded run-off-road crashes, in which 19 people were seriously injured and eight people killed.
More than three-quarters of those crashes involved vehicles straying off the road to the right and half of those saw vehicles crash head on into oncoming cars.
Federal Member for Gippsland Darren Chester who is the Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport has long been advocating for greater government investment to improve safety on the highway.
“There have been too many preventable crashes on the Princes Highway east of Sale in recent years,” Mr Chester said.
“Improvements have been made to help prevent motorists from drifting off or onto the wrong side of the road and colliding with oncoming traffic – a common occurrence in crashes recorded since 2005.
“I welcome the State Government’s investment in road safety on the Princes Highway east and look forward to working with them to further improve safety for motorists travelling on the highway right through to the New South Wales border.”
Mr Bull said the road safety improvements include thicker centrelines, tactile surfacing, different coloured roadside posts and electronic message signs.
“A number of new and interesting road safety treatments have been employed to try and keep drivers alert on their trip and minimise the effects of fatigue,” Mr Bull said.
“The treatments are aimed at keeping motorists alert and aware of their surroundings on what is a notoriously monotonous stretch of road and if they help to save one life, it has been worthwhile,” Mr Bull said.
The project is part of a larger $36 million program to reduce the crash rate along the Princes Highway from Longwarry to the New South Wales border.