Letters to the editor

October 14 2016 - 4:00pm
Letters to the Editor – October 14
Letters to the Editor – October 14

Fix roads urgently

The Great Ocean Road is indeed great, but it’s not a loop, it defies logic that the Federal Government funds the Great Ocean Road tourist journey from Melbourne to the 12 Apostles yet not the exit roads back to the highway to Colac. Why would you fund 90 per cent of a tourist route?  Masses of cars and buses exit the Great Ocean Road at Princetown or Port Campbell and head towards the highway, Melbourne-bound at dusk.  They drive through Simpson. The self-drive tourists drive through our towns where kids catch the bus, kick the footy and farmers move cattle or tractors. The tourists are very bad drivers. Very, very bad. They drive at 130km/h one minute and upon seeing a koala they stop, in the middle of the road for a photo. Then also forget which side of the road they’re meant to be on. We’ve had two head-on crashes in the last three weeks involving multiple people being ferried off to hospital.  Everyone here is nervous while driving. We know it is just a matter of time before there’s a mega crash involving any combination of tourist bus, milk tanker, school bus or tractor and there will be 50+ dead or injured. We’re already familiar with the noise of one air ambulance. I acknowledge that deciding which road to fix first is like picking the cleanest dirty shirt, none of them are good. But for what it’s worth; the most valuable thing for people is human life. Everything else is secondary to that. Right or wrong, I suspect there’s a massive voter backlash on the horizon for our local Liberal politicians who enjoy some of Australia’s safest seats. People are now angry. Personally, I’d fix the Great Ocean Road exit points. That’s purely because of the risk of massive loss of life, but I’m sure every reader has a story to tell. 

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