Deadly stretch has new victim

A MAN living beside one of the Far North’s deadliest stretches of road says he fears more lives will be lost before a multimillion-dollar upgrade is completed.

Steven Peach saw cars banking up outside his Wrights Creek home on the Bruce Highway on Tuesday morning before hearing of a motorist’s tragic death a few hundred metres south of his home.

His family has lived at their property for more than 40 years and he said he had seen the carnage first-hand over the years – including a little girl who “died on the front patio” and having to bravely crawl under a rolled car and release the trapped people from their seatbelt.

Works to duplicate the section of the highway between Edmonton and Gordonvale began in July as part of the $481 million stage 3 of the southern access corridor.

According to the Department of Transport and Main Roads the strip is the busiest two-lane section of the highway between Cairns and Brisbane, with a shocking road safety record

“It also has a poor road safety record with seven fatalities in nine years and crashes at intersections at volumes 6.6 times higher than the Bruce Highway average,” a report said.

The project is due to be completed in mid-2023.

Mr Peach said his family often heard the collisions before seeing them.

“It’s been woeful here,” he said. “I can’t understand it, there’s always accidents.

“And four years we’ve got to wait (until the highway upgrade is complete), how many more are going to happen?”

The crash on Tuesday was just north of the Sikh temple and the Wrights Creek Bridge which was the subject of a $12m widening upgrade in 2012 after being labelled a road safety black spot.

Mulgrave MP Curtis Pitt also joined forces with police and council to lobby for the speed limit to be reduced from 100km/h to 80km/h between Deppeler Road and Warner Road in 2009.

The stage 3 upgrade is a joint project between the federal and state governments.

Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch said the latest crash was a “tragedy” and showed why the upgrade was “absolutely critical”.

“These projects can never be done quick enough to prevent a tragedy like this, but hopefully it can be done quick enough to avoid more of them,” he said. “My heartfelt sympathy goes out to the family.”