By Cassandra Morgan and Alexander Darling
Six people died in four separate crashes in Victoria on Monday, taking the number of road deaths since Saturday to nine, a toll that included two double-fatal crashes.
Eight of the deaths occurred after the start of National Road Safety Week on Sunday.
A spate of fatal crashes
The day of tragedy on Monday began when a 46-year-old Springvale South man and a 52-year-old Scoresby woman died when their cars collided in Clayton South before 6am on Monday.
One hour later, in Swan Hill West, a 26-year-old man from the Buloke area died when he lost control of his car on Sea Lake-Swan Hill Road.
An hour after that, a two-car collision in Eganstown, between Ballarat and Daylesford, left the two people in one car dead and the driver of the other with serious injuries.
Then at 5pm, police confirmed a Kinglake man hit by a car while walking in West Footscray at 8.20am on Monday had died in hospital.
‘We don’t know what else we can do’
Assistant Commissioner Glenn Weir spoke at Victoria Police’s headquarters on Monday afternoon.
Weir was visibly frustrated at the press conference, which had initially been planned to announce a police road safety operation.
“There are no excuses for what we’ve seen, and particularly yesterday, Mother’s Day, [it was] particularly tragic,” Weir said.
“We are incredibly frustrated that in National Road Safety Week, which kicked off yesterday, we have seen really, really tragic and unacceptable levels of road trauma.
“We just don’t know what else we can do to appeal to people to please take care.”
Weir said the predominant causes of road trauma in Victoria remained the same.
“Something as simple as not stopping at a stop or give way sign, being distracted or speeding,” he said. “When we intercept people, they say, ‘We’re only a few k’s over’. We are seeing people die and be seriously injured because they are making those choices.”
Mother’s Day tragedies
Two teenagers are mourning their mother’s death, and their father is fighting for life after their family car rolled down an embankment on Sunday.
The woman, aged 49, from Dandenong North in Melbourne’s south-east, was travelling with her 19-year-old daughter, 15-year-old son and 52-year-old husband on Sunday when their silver Toyota and another vehicle collided at an intersection in Trafalgar, in west Gippsland, just before 6pm.
The woman’s husband was driving when he allegedly failed to stop at a stop sign, moving into the path of another car before the crash, which sent the family’s vehicle rolling off the road.
Police at the scene of the fatal crash in Trafalgar on Sunday.Credit: Nine News
The woman died at the scene, while her husband and the two teenagers were taken to hospital with serious injuries. The teenagers had been in the back of the Toyota.
“It’s an absolute tragedy that we’ve got the loss of a life, a wife, a mother, on Mother’s Day … killed in a crash that just should never, ever have occurred. Just a moment of inattention, a moment of distraction,” Detective Sergeant Mark Amos said.
“They’ve been there when they’ve lost their mum, on the worst possible day to lose your mum.”
The woman’s husband was flown to The Alfred, where he was in a critical condition on Monday. Their son was flown to a Melbourne hospital in a serious condition.
The woman’s 19-year-old daughter sustained lower body injuries, and was – along with the people in the second car, a 60-year-old man and a 58-year-old woman, from Yarragon – taken to Latrobe Regional Hospital in a stable condition.
“[The family’s car] has ended up on its side in a table drain on the side of the road,” Amos said.
“Someone is going to explain to this lady’s family, her children, why this happened, and believe me, that is no easy task.”
Greater Dandenong Mayor Jim Memeti said the tragedy hit the family’s community hard.
Police officers at the scene of the double-fatal crash at Clayton South on Monday.Credit: Joe Armao
“Our prayers and our thoughts go out to the family in this difficult time. I’m just pleading to everyone in the community to be careful on the roads,” Memeti said.
On Monday morning, a head-on collision at an intersection in Clayton South, in Melbourne’s south-east, about 6am killed the drivers of the two vehicles involved.
One of the drivers, a 52-year-old woman from Scoresby, crossed a median strip, drove onto the wrong side of the road and crashed into a car coming from the opposite direction, Inspector Graham Higginbotham said.
She and the other driver, a 46-year-old Springvale South man, were killed.
“At this stage, it’s not clear what the cause was,” Higginbotham said. “It’s a shocking weekend when you consider it was Mother’s Day yesterday … we can’t explain why suddenly this weekend has gone so bad.
“There’s no weather conditions that can contribute to it.”
A single-car crash at Swan Hill West, in Victoria’s north-west, killed a 26-year-old man, the sole occupant of the vehicle. Police found him dead about 7am and believe he lost control of his car.
On Sunday, another crash at an intersection – this time, at Pootilla, north-east of Ballarat – killed a driver about 4pm, while the driver of the other car was uninjured.
On Saturday, a man was killed when his motorcycle collided with a car at an intersection in Moutajup, south of the Grampians National Park, about 4.30pm.
The 53-year-old rider, from Coleraine, which is about 40 minutes’ drive from the crash site, died at the scene, while his passenger was flown to hospital with life-threatening injuries. The driver of the car, a 20-year-old man from Lake Mundi, near the Victoria-South Australia border, was released pending further inquiries.
A man also died in hospital hours after he was struck by a car while walking in West Footscray about 8.20am on Monday.
Across Victoria, 112 people have died on the roads so far this year – five more than for the same period last year. Speed played a part in more than 30 of this year’s road deaths, police say, which is at least seven more than for this time last year.
The causes of all seven crashes remain under investigation.
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