VicRoads need to fix lights chaos

PERHAPS it is time VicRoads took a leaf out of WorkSafe’s book and moved to Geelong.

Such a radical shake up may be what it takes to rid the road authority — which is meant to look after the whole state — of its utterly Melbourne-centric worldview.

We have previously reported on VicRoads’ tendency to act as if the state stopped at the tramtracks.

Who could forget the year they knocked off the 40km/h speed limits for Geelong schools on Melbourne Cup day on the dud assumption that just because children do not go to school in the capital on that day it must be the same everywhere else.

It is hard to imagine a generator being used to power traffic lights on Spring St for very long without our Melbourne-based pollies ensuring a better permanent fix was found.

And yet in our region this thirdworld fix is left in place for months even when public safety is at risk as a result.

There are now at least two sets of traffic lights — in Armstrong Creek and Leopold — running on diesel generators due to problems with the electrical power supply.

There are reports from the public of the lights going down when the generators run out of fuel (presumably when whoever’s job it is to top them up fails to get there in time.)

Powercor says it had a private contractor build the Armstrong Creek lights and it was waiting for that contractor to essentially get back to them about fixing the problem.

This is a totally ramshackle state of affairs.

We pay our taxes just like everyone else. We should be entitled to a better quality service from the state roads authority.

The public should not have to concern itself with the detail of how VicRoads gets any private contractors to sort this mess out — it just needs to do it.

A solution is required that is quick and that does not put the motorists of our region at risk.