Woman in hospital after highway crash

AN elderly woman was driving on the wrong side of the Brooker Highway before her car and another vehicle collided in one of two crashes causing commuter chaos in greater Hobart yesterday.

Tasmania Police said initial investigations into the crash at Rosetta at about 9.30am yesterday showed a car was travelling south on the wrong side of the highway.

A truck driving in the opposite direction swerved out of the way of the car, which resulted in a ute driving behind the truck and the woman’s car colliding.

The elderly woman driving the car was taken to hospital in a serious condition.

The man driving the ute was not seriously injured.

Earlier in the morning, up to 10 cars were involved in a crash on the Southern Outlet on the northbound lane about 1km from Kingston.

Police said yesterday that there were no serious injuries reported.

Infrastructure Minister Michael Ferguson said the deployment of two of the State Government’s rapid response tow trucks to the scene restored traffic flow faster.

“Deployment of tow trucks along Hobart’s major feeder routes has significantly reduced the interruption to traffic following crashes and breakdowns,” he said.

“While we acknowledge the frustration of motorists who were delayed by this incident, the restoration of traffic flow would have been much longer if this crash had occurred prior to the Government’s deployment of its fleet of tow trucks.”

A second “congestionbusting tow truck incident response unit” servicing the Southern Outlet and Macquarie and Davey streets was rolled out by the State Government in September.

The trucks operate during peak traffic periods, with another operating near the Tasman Bridge.

As part of the same suite of measures aiming to tackle greater Hobart’s growing traffic congestion, tougher measures to prevent motorists parking in clearways on Macquarie St also started last month.