Wide Bay road toll soars 80% in 2023

The number of road deaths across the Wide Bay and Burnett has soared by 80% this year, making the region the deadliest place to get in a car in 2023. Have your say in our poll:

Police have made a plea for courtesy on the roads as the Wide Bay Burnett’s death toll rises to be almost twice that of 2022.

Police figures as of September 6, 2023, reveal that 29 lives have been lost on the region’s roads since the start of the year - 13 higher than recorded in the same time last year.

The toll has been horrific.

In April, Kelsey Davies, Michale Chandler and Sheree Robertson all died in a shocking crash at Maryborough allegedly caused by a 13-year-old boy driving a stolen car.

Little more than one week earlier motorbike rider Brayden Roy, 21, was killed when his bike collided with a ute near Gin Gin.

A shocking crash which claimed the lives of three women, allegedly caused by a teenager driving a stolen car, contributed to a road toll almost double what it was at this same point in 2022.

Eighty-one-year-old Dennis Charles Neller has since been charged with dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death.

In May, Tinana mother Jodie Paterson (Russell) was killed in a crash at Chatsworth, 5km north of Gympie, when her car collided with a 4WD drive travelling the other way

In June, 15-year-old Lilly Hayes died several days after a crash a Gunalda in which she was the passenger in a car which collided head-on with a 4WD.

Even more deaths have occurred near but outside the official “Wide Bay Burnett” boundary, so were not included in the Wide Bay toll.

A triple fatality at Federal on July 21, which claimed the lives of Gypsy Satterley, Terry Bishop and Jessica Townley, occurred just inside the Sunshine Coast police district after a car was allegedly stolen in Gympie.

Gympie traffic officer-in-charge Chris Watson, with one of the state's yellow “fatal five” police cars, which was parked outside traffic court on Thursday, September 7, is pleading for people to take care on Wide Bay roads as the death toll soars.

A man has been charged with three counts of murder over the crash.

Gympie traffic officer-in-charge Chris Watson said the Wide Bay had the “worst road toll of Queensland”.

“That’s not a race we want to be winning,” Sgt Watson said.

“Across the board there’s just really poor driving behaviour … it’s not specifically speed on its own, or drink driving, it’s a combination of factors.”

He said “common courtesy … seems to have gone out the window”.

“A lot of people they’re driving down the highway … they’re encroaching on people’s safe driving space,” Sgt Watson said.

He pointed to a nine-car pileup at the Sunshine Coast as an example.

“I guarantee they were all following way too close,” he said.

“Give people space and get there safe.”

Curra teenager Lilly Hayes died six days after she was critically injured in a head-on crash at Gunalda in June.

There was a “ripple” effect beyond what the wreckage left on the road, he said.

“There’s so many people involved, the police who show up, the paramedics … the fireys, general members of the public … they either drive past or pull up, it affects a lot of people.”

Then there was the “years of rehab and recovery” for those who survive the crashes.

Sgt Watson said drivers needed to give people “the courtesy they think they deserve themselves” and “treat driving as a privilege, not a right”.

“They’re not the only people on the roads, they’re not the only people who have got loved ones.”

Hooning had become a growing problem too.

Some drivers had taken their reckless behaviour to extreme heights, doing burnouts outside police stations and in residential streets.

Tinana mum Jodie Russell died in a serious crash at Chatsworth in May.

“I think there’s a little bit of a copycat mentality … everyone’s heard of that Mexican Hoon Cartel,” Sgt Watson said.

“There’s also that entitled nature of the people we’re dealing with, ‘you can’t tell me what to do’.”

These pleas were shared by the state’s peak motoring body.

RACQ road safety manager Joel Tucker said the most commonly raised frustration among the groups’ members was tailgating.

Mr Tucker said it was an offence which was “quite hard for police to enforce”.

Unfortunately, more than a decade of ongoing education about leaving at least two seconds’ gap between cars had not changed behaviours as much as hoped.

People still had an incorrect view of themselves as “good drivers and they will choose a distance they think is safe”.

The condition of rural roads was another concern.

Mr Tucker said unlike their city counterparts, Wide Bay Burnett roads were more unforgiving when it came to driver error.

A crash on dual carriageway which might only end in hospital, he said, could easily be fatal on regional roads.

“We’ve all got to stick to the rules and be at our best to drive each day,” Mr Tucker said.