David Penberthy: Long Valley Rd can be described as a death trap, as it has failed to keep pace with the growing population in that part of the Hills
This double fatality on Long Valley Rd should start a debate around how we channel so much money into questionable road projects in the city – while country people are left to risk their lives with substandard infrastructure, writes David Penberthy.
The way Mum tells the story it was as if the car travelling in front of her simply blew up.
A few years ago my parents were driving between Wistow and Strathalbyn on Long Valley Rd. Suddenly there was an almighty explosion as the car in front of them collided head-on with an oncoming vehicle, both cars travelling around the permitted speed of 100km/h.
The sole female occupant of one of the vehicles was killed instantly. The sole male occupant of the other car was still alive but trapped in his vehicle with massive injuries.
My Dad and a bloke travelling in another vehicle helped free the stricken man from the wreckage but by the time the ambos arrived there was nothing they could do. The man died within 35 minutes of the crash.
Needless to say the entire episode was deeply harrowing for my parents.
When they rang to tell me what had happened they were seriously distressed, not just by the horror of seeing two people die and trying to comfort one of them in his final minutes, but also the existential what-ifs as to what might have transpired if their car had been first rather than second in line.
It was, of course, a vastly more tragic event for the loved ones of those who died that day, whose lives changed for the worse forever more.
This same stretch of road was the site of another double fatality this week, the details of which are unbearably sad.
Childhood sweethearts Hayden Perkins, 17, of Callington, and Mikayla Eastwood, 18, of Strathalbyn, were killed when their Mazda 323 collided with another car being driven by a 31-year-old Mt Barker woman, who sustained minor injuries.
Remarkably, that woman was one of the teachers at the Eastern Fleurieu School, where Hayden and Mikayla had only just finished Year 12.
The deaths have caused intense grief in the towns of Callington and Strathalbyn and an appalling sense of loss at the Eastern Fleurieu School, where grief counsellors have been brought in to console the students and staff. These are small, tight-knit communities. The ripple effect from the loss of two great young people so filled with promise will be vast.
I have driven along Long Valley Rd dozens of times. My sister and brother-in-law live in Strath. My niece and nephew attend Eastern Fleurieu.
And, while I am not a road engineer, I’d say that this stretch of road can be described without any sense of hysteria as a death trap, as it has failed to keep pace with the growing population in that part of the Hills.
The road runs 16km from Wistow to Strath. From Wistow to Strath there are no passing lanes and a double line almost the entire way.
From Strath to Wistow there are two passing lanes, both of which conclude on a rising gradient, meaning if a driver is overtaking from the opposite direction and cuts it fine, you have no way of seeing them approach.
To that end, this second double fatality on Long Valley Rd should start a debate around how we channel so much money into questionable or frivolous road projects in the city and suburbs, while country people are left to risk their lives with substandard infrastructure.
Long Valley Rd should force the discussion around other well-known dangerous roads in the South-East, the Iron Triangle, near Ceduna, Keith or Clare, where other people have lost their lives or been injured taking risks that no city resident ever has to countenance.
On Thursday we spoke to the Alexandrina Mayor Keith Parkes who documented the overtaking problems I outlined above.
He also made the point that, despite the urban sprawl in the Hills, this is still a farming area, meaning you get trucks carrying stock, horse floats and farm machinery using the road.
Additionally, because it’s a tourist area, you get the Sunday drivers who putt-putt along at 70km/h in a 100km/h zone, meaning busy people who are getting to work or picking up their kids end up taking risks.
You could fix half the problem immediately by putting in a couple of slow vehicle turn-out bays like they have on the Great Ocean Rd.
The perversity of all this is that we can spend millions adjusting the end of the O-Bahn to shave a few minutes off travel times, or we can furiously debate spending millions more on a right-hand-turning tram, despite all evidence that it’s an engineering impossibility.
I was on Richmond Rd the other day, which for some inexplicable reason was again the site of chaotic roadworks, just months after it was apparently finished.
We can declare that the King William Rd shopping precinct needs to be repaved as a matter of urgency, even though I use that road all the time and can see no visible signs or potholes, or any actual deterioration.
Meanwhile, country kids and country parents wrap themselves around trees and crash into each other doing what we in the city take for granted, getting from A to B.
If I were the State Government I’d declare a two-year moratorium on city roadworks, save for genuine and urgent dangerous roads, and the tail-end of the T2 and Darlington fix.
In a political sense it would be doubly popular, you’d think, as us Adelaideans hate roadworks, and country people are fed up with dangerous roads.
They have every right to be. Country people have put up with it for too long, punished I suppose for not having enough marginal seats.
Who knows how much money state governments have reaped, too, from all the new housing in Strath, Murray Bridge, Nairne and Callington, with none of that stamp duty and land tax set aside to provide safe roads for a growing population.
This should be the crash that forces change.
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