I was heading on my last camp for the year yesterday and along the way to the camp site I was directed around what is arguably the most traumatic motor accident in NSW since the bus crashes on the Pacific Highway in 1989. On the Great Western Highway, 10 minutes west of Lithgow a head-on accident involving five cars reportedly saw two people killed and 18 injured - the injured being taken to hospitals far and wide by four helicopters and more than a dozen ambulances. The highway was closed for the rest of the day as Police tried to put together what occurred in the moments prior to the accident. I've driven this stretch of road on and off for something like 35 years and whilst it is not a divided road it is fairly straight with a good surface. Even without knowing the cause, it tells me that this accident most likely could have been avoided.

On a related note, and without making any assumptions as to the accident yesterday, I've attached a video showing some of the more serious accidents of 2023. This includes people fighting over mergers of lanes, truckies overtaking on unbroken lines and driving around bends too quickly and the now all too common 'brake tests', where a cranky driver will pull in front of another car and then slam his brakes on. Drivers doing this should face a mandatory gaol sentence.

UPDATE: 7 News has shown a graphic on how it appears the crash on the Great Western Highway happened.



The stretch of road where the accident occurred is just beyond where a divided road ends. It should also be mentioned that the NSW Government recently decided to scrap the construction of a tunnel between Medlow Bath and Hartley, which is east of the accident site. Not only should this tunnel be built but the Government should work towards replacing all major highways in NSW with divided carriageways, as was done with the Pacific Highway.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

A terrible irony:

QUOTE:
In a tragic coincidence, David Drozd, 42 [second victim in Friday’s horror crash near Lithgow] made a career out of ensuring fewer lives would be lost on our roads as traffic engineer.

Mr Drozd previously worked for Penrith City Council before starting his own traffic consulting company in 2012.

In 2016 he had written a report for Blue Mountains City Council on the same road he lost his life on, where he identified several hazards between Faulconbridge and Linden.

-- Daily Telegraph

Reconstruction video: So bloke towing trailer has two lanes but is hammering along on the (intermittent) inside lane? Yet there's signs saying do not use that lane unless overtaking!

One account of the crash said that a car hit the rear of the bike trailer, causing it to move into the opposing lane. Who knows.

Even divided roads can have head-on crashes, don't forget that idiot woman on the Hume Motorway who crossed through the divider and crashed into a car carrying a woman and her two kids on the way to school, killing them all. The one at fault was to face Picton Court but I never heard what happened there, and the story dropped out of the media interest.

While tunnels may be a good idea, they cost heaps which the state cannot afford right now while it struggles to get the budget fixed after the covid mess. Also, adding extra lanes later is next to impossible.

I tend to watch quite a few car crash videos. While most are on youtube they censor a lot of stuff, so sometimes you need to look elsewhere. Some of the best can be found at https://odysee.com/JohnConnor:f?view=content (replace the with a real at-sign). The person who runs that channel also has another channel where the gruesome stuff is, such as pedestrians and animals being run over, road rage, street fights, motorcycle crashes and so on. Anyone who wants the link can ask privately.

Yes, please keep links to anything unsavoury off here. I may be assuming too much but I will risk it by suggesting that there'd be very few VR members interested in graphic footage of trauma scenes. Youtube does have rules but they vary, depending on whether the channel owner is running ads or not. If one is making money from their channel, Youtube is far stricter with content. Minor breaches see the content left but any ads run will only make Youtube any money and the channel owner doesn't get their cut. This is known as demonetisation. In more serious cases they will delete the content. If one isn't running ads they are more open to what is uploaded providing they don't think they'll get sued for hosting it.

Tunnels can be widened. It was done on the Epping Tunnels some years ago on the M2. It is very disruptive though so I doubt we'll be seeing that happen on the bigger tunnels any time soon. WestConnex has been designed with the future in mind though, which is why there is a mix of tunnel sizes ranging from two lanes through to five lanes each way depending on where one is going.

There will always be accidents but it is easy to argue that there's far fewer on modern roads with a wide median and the statistics support that. I do remember the collision you highlighted. There are parts of the Hume Highway which don't have the complete protection of armco rails or cable barriers. Of course, nothing can completely replace driver attentiveness and that is free. I don't risk things. If I feel tired I pull over and rest - even if it is in a spot I probably am not supposed to do it in, such as a roadside worksite or gravel stockpile.

One account of the crash said that a car hit the rear of the bike trailer, causing it to move into the opposing lane. Who knows.

Anything is possible at this stage. Unless one of the cars had a working in-car camera and it was operating at the time of the collision, the exact cause may not be known. I have three cameras in my car, one out the windscreen, one pointing to the rear and an older camera which no longer recognises its rear camera is in the boot facing forward so it can look out the windows on to the front and right hand side.

Fact is, I could start my own dashcam channel and produce a 20 minute video each week just with the footage I collect. I see some really dumb things happen and the cameras probably notice some things that I don't pick up myself. My problem there is that I don't have the time to download all the raw footage and do video editing.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

I'm probably quite fortunate in that I don't often see idiots on the road, I know there's heaps around, but I just don't normally encounter them.

As for youtube, I'm not a member and I run adblockers, so I don't see any ads. However I'm often hit with age-restricted videos where they want me to sign on to verify my age. Well, they will never get that information, not ever. There used to be a way to get around that restriction but then they blocked it off, so I just have to do without.

One more thing, is about the rising road toll. When I was a kid, the road toll was over 1000 in NSW each year. But then they brought in mandatory seatbelts, penalties for drink driving and phone usage, and speed cameras, which have all made a big difference. But the last few years have brought in an ever-increasing amount of idiots who seem to be determined to kill themselves and others, and there's no remedy for that. So I can't see the road toll getting lower again.

The NT has a unique problem - about 88% of deaths are caused by drink driving, and drunk pedestrians wandering onto roads. I'm not sure why nothing is being done about that.

Yes, the NT should theoretically have the lowest road toll in Australia, 250,000 people in a jurisdiction four or five times as large as Germany should be able to aim for a lower figure without too much money or trouble.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

The NT has a unique problem - about 88% of deaths are caused by drink driving, and drunk pedestrians wandering onto roads. I'm not sure why nothing is being done about that.

I've heard it referred to as the 'Nebriated Territory. IIRC, alcohol bans/restrictions are in place again there.

Talking about idiots who should never be on the road, it's truck drivers who ignore level crossings and cause train wrecks. Just yesterday (31st Dec) 2 train drivers were killed west of Broken Hill when an idiot truck driver drove onto the tracks right in front of their train. Half the train derailed, and the locomotive caught fire. In fact, trucks are the biggest menace for trains, causing large numbers of what should be avoidable collisions (I won't call them accidents).

The truck driver in this incident emerged without a scratch. I hope he gets thrown in gaol for murder, and that the transport company sues him for all the damage he has caused.


EDIT: seems the system time on this forum is half an hour late.

The truck driver has been locked up and charged with 2 counts of dangerous driving causing death. He will appear before a magistrate tomorrow.

The system time has been updated. One cannot trust time servers these days, including the one provided by the CSIRO.

Whilst not being technically murder under law, the offence of dangerous driving occasionioning death is still serious and in most states and territories the maximum punishment is ten years in gaol, upgraded to 14 years if the counts are aggravated.

I am familiar with the level crossing and whilst I do not know the circumstances it baffles me as to why the truck driver did not stop.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

..... maybe he didn't want to wait for the whole train to pass?? ... a very long train?? ....

Yep, not interested in car crash videos ....

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Cheers, Ian

It does seem as though it will take an entire attitude shift if we are to prove that we value life.

Where has courtesy gone? Obeyance to the road rules?
The road rules are a set of instructions to ensure our safety.

It is the selfish that cause crashes! I will never call a crash an accident. To call a crash an accident is to throw ones hands into the air and say, “it was an accident.” “Nothing could have been done about it.” That is defeatist and not helpful. If you find that you have difficulty getting to work on time, do not speed, run red lights, nor change lanes incessantly hoping to make up time. Just begin your journey earlier. Remember.
Your high risk behaviour becomes everyone's high risk.

Wayne.

The truck driver I referred to earlier, has been given bail, but he must report to Port Pirie police daily. Since he lives in QLD, he'll have to pay to stay somewhere close by so he can abide by the bail conditions. He'll face court again in April.

The damage has been estimated at around $50 million. I hope he has to pay it.

One of his conditions would be to refrain from leaving SA, as the supervising court has no jurisdiction across the border and they would then have to issue a warrant for his arrest.

I was on the Great Western Highway yesterday afternoon and was listening to 2GB on the climb from Sydney to Katoomba. There was a lot of storm activity and motor accidents to go with it, including a head-on just before Leura. This collision occured on a stretch of the highway which has just had its speed limit lowered from 80 to 70 and for the benefit of those who are familiar with the highway, the accident was right where the big yellow railway flyover is.

On another note, I was planning on doing a walk, which is a regular thing for me. I sometimes walk the length of the Prince Henry Walk which runs from near the back platform for the Scenic Skyway to Merriwa Street in Katoomba and something told my sixth sense to not bother with it. I decided against the walk because it looked like rain and I went and grabbed an early tea instead before heading home. I later heard that three people were struck by lightning about 20m from where I usually begin the walk, near the Three Sisters.

The victims were taken to the Anzac Memorial Hospital on the highway for treatment and the last I heard they were all fine but it would have been a most unpleasant experience. Apparently the lightning hit the handrail the three victims were leaning on at the time of the strike. I reckon, sometimes it pays to go with a gut feeling.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...