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How many lives does it take to notice us?

Head-on collision deaths are preventable when the government gives enough of a damn to put in the infrastructure.

PREVENTABLE road deaths will continue along the Bruce Hwy as long as it remains two lanes.

Our community has been rocked once again by a tragic death on the main thoroughfare between Maryborough and Gympie.

A young man's life was cut short in the January 1 collision while travelling through Chatsworth, just north of Gympie.

How many lives will it take before the government takes action and gives the Fraser Coast the same infrastructure as our metropolitan counterparts.

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In the 2017/2018 budget we saw the Turnbull government's plans to expand the highway between the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane from four to six lanes to ease congestion.

Tell that to the half-a- dozen grieving families who lost children, brothers, sisters on this stretch of road just in 2017. One thing that boggles my brain is the people short-sighted enough to say "it's not the fault of the road, it's up to the drivers", as if our region shouldn't have the same highway infrastructure that the people living between Melbourne and Gympie do.

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First of all, we will never eliminate human error and there's no question it leads to the vast majority of road crashes and road deaths.

However, more than half the road deaths in the last 15 years on the stretch of the Bruce Hwy between Gympie and Torbanlea have been a result of head-on collisions.

Those are deaths that would not have had to happen if we had four lanes.

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And you know who pays the price? The law-abiding citizens driving along the Bruce Hwy who have just a few microseconds to react to a car swerving on their side of the road.

Many of the people killed in these accidents are innocent and were following all the rules.

A lot of these deaths cannot be prevented by good driving.

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But they can be prevented by good governance.

Head-on collision deaths are preventable when the government gives enough of a damn to put in the infrastructure.

How many more sons, daughters, fathers or mothers have to die on the Bruce Hwy between Gympie and Torbanlea before the government steps up to the plate?

Original URL: https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/fraser-coast/opinion/how-many-lives-does-it-take-to-notice-us/news-story/80aada068e78c1f389bc34fd65598bdc