Australia’s highway of hell: Farmer loses it at Dan Andrews over potholes – and claims road has not been repaired for years
Australia's highway of hell: Farmer loses it at Dan Andrews over potholes - and claims road has not been repaired for years
- Photos and videos show pot-holed highway
- Local farmer has erected 'Danhole' warnings
- Community threatening to close the road
Locals are so frustrated by the perilously potholed state of a highway that they are threatening to close it off and are leaving pointed 'safety signs' warning of 'Danholes', leaving no doubt who they blame for the crumbling infrastructure.
Dean Kruger, a local farmer, shared photos of the huge potholes in the Melba Highway, just north of the town of Glenburn in Victoria's north east.
'This would have to be one of the worst sections of road in Victoria,' he said with the camera pan showing the worn-through asphalt and also warning signs telling motorists there was 'rough surface' and they should 'reduce speed'.
They are not potholes, these are craters,' Mr Kruger told Daily Mail Australia on Thursday.
'People go ‘it’s only potholes’. It is not ‘only potholes’ this is a deadly dangerous road and its not the people in Spring Street (Victorian Parliament) who have to deal with it, it’s the local CFA members who are the first responders to the car accident.
Glenburn farmer Dean has posted images showing large potholes in the local Melba Highway
'It’s the poor family who lives adjacent to this road that come down when they hear the smash and they have to deal with that.
'You are talking about young parents. You are talking about the elderly they have to deal with these grisly scenes.'
Mr Kruger said the nearest ambulance to the stretch of highway between Glenburn and Yea where had been 'multiple fatal crashes' was 25 minutes away and the nearest hospital was an hour's drive.
He said he felt physically sick standing by the road watching close calls every few minutes because of the state of the road.
'What happens is these cars coming through at 40km and then the trucks aren’t slowing down,' he said.
'I've seen multiple occasions where trucks almost cleaned out multiple rows of cars that had literally come to a stop to get through these potholes.'
'The trucks slow down to about 80 and they then swerve onto the opposite side of the road where they take up the other lane.'
'There’s two potholes within 50 metres of one another they take up the whole southbound lane.'
Dean has begun putting up his own warning signs on the crumbling Melba Highway in central Victoria,
'The issue is the signage says "roadworks ahead slow 40km".
'When they see no road crew they go “what am I slowing down for”?'
Mr Kruger said the highway and other regional roads have been in a dire state for 'at least three years'.
'There’s a landslide where rocks came down three years ago in the emergency stopping lane it’s been there for three years,' he said.
'It’s just got one of those arrow sign that’s best they can do.'
The exasperated farmer has taken things into his own hands by putting up his own signs, which read 'Danholes ahead', 'Caution Dan punctuation zone ahead' and 'Caution potholes sponsored by Danyears'.
'It was the one thing I could do,' he said.
'I have got to do something about this, it has to get on people’s radars.'
He said a Vic Roads employee had taken the first set of signs down but he had plenty of replacements and the community was right behind him with even more drastic measures in the works.
Dean says Vic Roads staff have come out to pull down his signs down but he has plenty more to wag a 'war of attrition'
Mr Kruger claimed Melba Highway potholes were being filled 'on the cheap'.
'They are not using qualified engineer-based road surfacing companies,' he said.
'They just did a stretch south of Glenburn and within two months the road is appalling, so they are not doing the subsurface correctly.
'They are walking around with bags of quick pothole filler and putting that in there and thinking that’s the job done but it’s not.
'Regional Roads Victoria have allocated $79million for road maintenance. That’s going to cover a few witches' hats.'
A Victorian government spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday the roads has been majorly damaged by last year's floods in 'one of the wettest years in Victoria's history'.
'We're getting on with repairing unprecedented levels of damage caused to our road network,' the spokesperson said.
'We've already allocated $165 million to delivering emergency flood repairs, with a further $770 million set to be spent on maintaining our roads over the next 12 months as part of our continued investment in maintaining Victoria's road assets.'
'The road is built up from surrounding land. It is not floodwaters. It is poor maintenance and construction from the get go,' Mr Kruger.
'Over the next fortnight we will have a community meeting about staging a protest and closing that section of the road on a Friday,' Mr Kruger said, claiming the local councillor is fully supportive.
'We will get Victoria Police involved so we get road management.
'This about road safety, this is about lives.'
Facebook groups have been set up by locals lamenting the state of the Melba Highway and other roads in the region.
Comedian Simon Lance posted frightening footage showing a speeding in the dark of night hitting huge potholes in the Melba Highway and jumping before the driver slams on the brakes.
'Ohhh... guy's that's dangerous,' Mr Lance exclaims.
'That guy's just damaged his car. I better go and see if he needs some help.'
Lance, who was once married to Melbourne gangland lawyer Zarah Garde-Wilson, said he had also hit the potholes.
'I damaged my car. I had electrical problems,' he said.
'My car went into limp mode it wouldn't run. I was at the mechanic for three days until they figured it out.
'Also a family friend she hit these potholes in her wheel and actually cracked her wheel.'
'If you are doing a 100 and you don't see them surely it is dangerous.'
'We're not in a third world country. This has been for over a year, it's f**king ridiculous.'
Local state Liberal MP Cindy McLeish told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday there were long tracts of road that were 'very dangerous' in her electorate.
'It's absolutely shocking. It's been bad for years and the rain has made it worse,' she said.
Locals say Victoria's Melba's highway is riddled with dangerous potholes that are damaging cars
'The area we are talking about Yea to Mansfield is a free highway, so it is the Melba Highway that is really, really bad then it joins to the Goulburn Valley and then the Maroondah Highway onto Mansfield.'
'There's stretches that are 20 or 30 metres long where the road surface has deteriorated then there's 10 metres where it's almost like has sunk and there's potholes everywhere.
'The surfaces are cracking there's crumbling shoulders.'
She said cars were often forced to make roadside repairs.
'What is really common is seeing cars on the side of the road, changing tyres or having damaged rims with the RACV or tow trucks particularly at busy tourism times,' she said.
'They (tourists) are not used to dodging the potholes whereas the locals are used to knowing they roads are in a bad state.
'All of that is dangerous because if you hit a pothole you could lose control of a vehicle.'
Ms McLeish said she can't walk down the street without someone telling her about the poor state of the roads and they weren't always locals with plenty travelling from Melbourne's east to the ski resorts of Mt Bulla and Mt Hotham.
She has raised the issue many times in parliament and tried to talk directly to the Andrews government about the issue.
'Over the years I have written to various ministers to roads and they typically say we are investing this much in Victoria or northern Victoria over this five years or however many years and all roads are assessed as a matter of priority,' she said.
'The government does say there's not enough money but I bet my bottom dollar if regional roads or roads Victoria had the amount of money that is dedicated to one level crossing removal that they would able to make an enormous difference.
'There's some money and you choose where to put that money and you are not choosing to fix the appalling condition of regional roads in Victoria.'
Ms McLeish has even started a petition[2] to Victoria's Legislative Assembly to get her regions roads fixed, which on Thurday afternoon had over 1500 signatures.
References
- ^ David Southwell For Daily Mail Australia (www.dailymail.co.uk)
- ^ a petition (www.parliament.vic.gov.au)