Mackay fatal crash: Man dies after car slams into tree at Bloomsbury

Motorists who regularly travel the Bruce Highway have hit out at its condition in the Mackay region in the wake of another fatal at Bloomsbury.

A woman flown to hospital from the scene of a fatal crash Saturday night has been discharged as motorists hit out at the state of roads in the region.

Police said a vehicle, a Toyota Hiace travelling south, left the road and crashed into a tree off the Bruce Highway near the Bloomsbury Primary School about 6pm.

The 53-year-old man died at the scene about 1km north of Midge Point Rd.

His passenger, a 41-year-old woman, was flown to Mackay Base Hospital in a serious condition with head injuries.

She was released from hospital on Monday.

Investigations into the latest tragedy are ongoing.

The man’s death is the 15th on the region’s roads so far this year, putting the road toll well above last year.

Exasperated readers have hit out at the state of the roads in the region, calling for “serious money” to be spent fixing them instead of “band aid fixes”.

“The roads are literal death traps in places,” Jules Thompson wrote.

Matt Dillon described the Bloomsbury to Yalboroo stretch as the worst on the Bruce Highway.

“They just refill the potholes with bitumen only to be washed away next time it raids,” he said.

“(It) needs to be resurfaced, not band-aided.”

On May 12, a 60-year-old Carmila man died in a bus and car collision on the Bruce Highway between Mackay and Rockhampton.

On May 11, a Calen woman, 31, died when her car was swept off a flooded causeway at Mount Ossa about 5am Wednesday.

Two men, Jordan Blanch and Jacob Betts, died in separate traffic incidents on Sunday, May 8.

The Mackay district’s road toll now sits at 14, which is 12 more than the number of road fatalities for the same period last year.

As at May 13 last year, two people had died in traffic crashes.

This year’s road toll as of Sunday sat at 14.

“The numbers, these are mums and dads, kids and children, or they’re grandchildren of grandparents,” Superintendent Burgess said.

“There’s a tragedy in this. It hits home about the personal circumstances of the tragedy.”