RUSSIAN ROULETTE ON ROAD

Bus driver tells of daily near misses on iconic coastal route and says it’s like playing ...

A BUS driver who regularly travels from Geelong to Apollo Bay says she witnesses up to four near-miss crashes caused by international drivers along the Great Ocean Road each trip.

“It’s like playing Russian roulette every day I go to work,” she said.

“I just wonder how long it will be before I collect one of them.”

She said the onus needed to be on hire car companies who were “lending people these missiles”.

Her revelation comes after an international driver was nabbed d driving a rented Mustang at more ore than 160km/h in a 100km/h zone e in Winchelsea on Friday.

A BUS driver who regularly travels from Geelong to Apollo Bay says she sees up to four near-miss crashes caused by international drivers along the Great Ocean Road each trip.

Jackie, who wished only to use her first name, said she had been driving the route since July and felt it was only a matter of time before she was involved in an incident with an international driver.

“It’s like playing Russian roulette every day I go to work,” she said. “I just wonder how long it will be before I collect one of them.”

Jackie said the onus needed to be on hire car companies who were “lending people these missiles”.

“We need to put it back on hire car companies to have tougher legislation to ensure international drivers are better able to drive in Australia,” she said. International drivers have been at the centre of several incidents recently including: AN inexperienced Chinese driver who pleaded guilty to causing the death of a 52-yearold man at a notorious Birregurra intersection on Boxing Day 2017 after passing three sets of rumble strips and a reduce speed sign; and, AN international driver who was nabbed driving a rented Mustang at more than 160km/h in a 100km/h zone in Winchelsea on Friday.

At a community meeting in Apollo Bay on Friday, Corangamite MP Sarah Henderson called on the State Government to follow New Zealand’s lead and develop a code of conduct for hire car operators.

“One of things that New Zealand has done is developed a code of conduct for the hire car industry so that when someone arrives in the country and hires a car, the hire car company has got a really strong framework to say ‘look, do you know that this is what you need to do’,” she said.

Experts have called for greater road safety education for international drivers for 20 years.

Last year researcher Ian Faulks, who co-authored a report on international driver safety in 1999, said many of the paper’s recommendations — including compulsory in-flight driver safety videos and foreign language in-car recordings — had not been implemented.

Ms Henderson said she had spoken to Avalon Airport CEO Justin Giddings about implementing inbound road safety videos on international flights and she hoped AirAsia would follow suit.

She also suggested automated audio warnings in hire cars reminding people to stay left, particularly when turning a corner.

“VicRoads has confirmed more than 20 per cent of accidents occurred because of international tourists,” Ms Henderson said.

Polwarth MP Richard Riordan said incidents when an ambulance was not called to the crash were not included in the statistics, therefore the statistics were likely to be much higher.