Caleb Bond: State government should pay to remove trucks from freeway arrester beds

There’s an easy way to make the treacherous South-Eastern Freeway safer but the Premier has already put it on the road to ruin, writes Caleb Bond.

A third arrester bed on the South Eastern Freeway makes sense.

The Transport Workers Union has proposed the idea in recent years and nothing much has happened.

As reported this week, engineers were brought down from Queensland eight years ago to investigate a third arrester bed and, again, nothing much was done. This inaction has now happened under both Labor and Liberal governments.

When a truck careered out of control at the bottom of the freeway and killed two people in 2014, the downtrack speed limit was cut to 60km/h for trucks and buses and 90km/h for cars.

A third arrester bed was recommended in a coroner’s inquest – a recommendation that was ultimately ignored.

Premier Peter Malinauskas has now promised to re-examine the idea. Thank goodness.

But he has already set the proposal up to fail, bizarrely suggesting that the cost may be prohibitive.

Rescue and emergency services at the bottom of the freeway after the truck barrelled through the intersection. Picture: Keryn Stevens

“Ultimately when we’re talking about, particularly in the fiscal environment that we now operate within, we’re using taxpayers dollars very carefully in a way that’s consistent with what we committed to before the election,” Mr Malinauskas said on Wednesday morning.

Does the Premier believe the budget is more important than the lives of innocent people waiting at the lights at the bottom of the freeway?

The RAA’s investigations into a third arrester bed concluded it could cost between $7m and $44m – small bickies in government terms and well worth it if it saves lives.

It is more by pure luck than anything else that no one has been killed by a truck at the Cross, Portrush and Glen Osmond roads intersection in eight years.

Multiple trucks have either hit cars or trundled straight through the intersection in recent years.

The final arrester bed is stationed at a section of road that is, in the grand scheme of the freeway descent, reasonably flat.

It could lull an interstate truck driver, unfamiliar with the route, into the false belief that he has time to regain control. That is why a third arrester bed is so crucial – it would provide a final out.

And a third arrester bed should come with the assurance that the state government will cover the cost of towing trucks out of them.

It is an exercise that can cost about $10,000 which, if you’re an owner-operator or working for an unscrupulous trucking company, may serve as a major incentive to career towards tragedy.

Yes, all trucks should be maintained properly and all truckies should know how to operate their vehicles. Those that don’t should have the book thrown at them.

But the evidence is conclusive – that expectation has not stopped crashes and near misses.

It’s only a matter of time until someone is once again killed.