Bruce Highway crashes putting ‘pressure’ on cops amid fears of record road toll

Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski says Bruce Highway is putting “pressure” on an already-stretched workforce and recalled a time when he had hold a little boy as he died from a previous crash.

Qld Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said 259 people including 15 children have been killed on Queensland roads this year ahead of the Christmas period.

More than 250 people have been killed on Queensland roads so far this year as the state’s top cop revealed crashes on the Bruce Highway were putting “pressure” on an already-stretched workforce.

Queensland Police Service (QPS) Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said 259 people including 15 children have been killed on Queensland roads this year ahead of the Christmas period.

Speaking ahead of World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, Mr Gollschewski said: “People are making choices that are putting themselves and others at risk”.

It comes just days after The Courier-Mail revealed that three people a month have been killed on the Bruce Highway including the deaths of Tracey Craig and her 13-year-old son Corey in a horror crash at Raglan near Gladstone on Tuesday night.

“We’ve had 27 fatal crashes on the Bruce Highway this year with 34 deaths,” Mr Gollschewski said.

“It’s an extremely long highway, some of these crashes are happening in very remote places.

“For us to respond and for all our emergency services to respond, that’s a real challenge, it does put pressure on systems getting there.”

Gordonvale woman Jaime Morris was killed in a single vehicle Bruce Highway crash this week. Picture: Supplied

Mr Gollschewski said fatal crashes had a “profound” impact on first responders.

“I’ve been a first responder, (I remember) as a young officer going to a fatal crash where six people died and holding a little boy as he died … these sorts of things do not leave you in your career,” he said.

“I know that our officers are exposed to this every day and I know the trauma that this has on them.

“There’s almost an acceptance that if I’m going to drive in the car there could be a crash, that’s not the way it should be.

“One of the things as a father and a grandfather that I care about most is what’s going to happen to my children and my grandchildren when they are in a car on the road … it’s a big fear for all of us.”

Asked whether he was concerned about the number of young people charged over fatal crashes, Mr Gollschewski said: “We’ve got a real focus on youth crime as you know and we will continue to do so”.

Two passengers in Nissan Navara, a 40-year-old woman and 13-year-old boy sustained life-threatening injuries and, died at the scene of the crash on the Bruce Highway at Raglan.

“We know that even though there are less young offenders over the last 10 years there are more offences and more dangerous offences for young people … a core group of young offenders that continually commit really serious crimes including in vehicles,” he said.

QPS Road Policing and Regional Support Command Acting Assistant Commissioner Janelle Andrews said in the past year there had been an “alarming rise in the number of lives lost due to The Fatal Five”.

“Our research is indicating that we are trending towards being one of the most devastating years on Queensland roads … we are taking a tactical and targeted approach with increased high visibility policing patrols across the state,” she said.

Earlier this week Premier David Crisafulli promised to do more to fix the state’s “goat track”.

The newly-minted government’s first action will be reconstituting an advisory body to sort out a “long-term strategy” for the highway — a move the Opposition believes won’t save a single life.

Mr Crisafulli said crashes like in Raglan — where a man has been charged — sends regional communities into a “real sense of despair”.

“We have to do more on the Bruce … no one is suggesting that on a long road like that, that you won’t have incidents, but we can do much better for Queenslanders who drive it,” he said.

“It’s the lifeblood of regional Queensland. It is the only option, and we have to get it up to a standard, because right now, it’s a goat track.”