Hume Council asks police to ramp up Sunbury Rd patrols

HUME Council says motorists are performing dangerous U-turns and parking manoeuvres on Sunbury Rd to avoid paying for airport parking.

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HUME Council will urge police to ramp up patrols on Sunbury Rd as dangerous driving habits escalate.

At last week's council meeting, Sunbury councillor Jack Medcraft called for a letter to be sent appealing for police to regularly patrol the road, especially between Melbourne Airport and Oaklands Junction.

Cr Medcraft said he and fellow councillor Jack Ogilvie recently had a northbound car perform a dangerous U-turn directly in front of their vehicle.

It seemed the driver had wanted to pick up someone from the airport.

Cr Medcraft said that people were avoiding short-term parking fares at the airport by continuing towards Sunbury and pulling over beside Sunbury Rd.

"Someone's going to get killed here,'' he said.

"People forget that it's 100km/h both ways; I'm amazed that no one has been cleaned up. It's a disaster."

Cr Ogilvie said the incident reinforced his concerns over safety on Sunbury Rd and VicRoads should act immediately.

"More people are doing ­­U-turns as there has been a crackdown on motorists who used to pull over on the freeway to the south of the airport."

"It's sheer stupidity from a safety perspective especially when there is a roundabout at Oaklands Rd only several minutes away.''

Cr Ogilvie said VicRoads should step in immediately.

"I'm not a traffic engineer but some sort of wire separation between the lanes could be what we need to do to stamp out U-turns."

The proposal was supported unanimously.

VicRoads' acting regional director metro north west Damien Afxentis said it was aware of safety concerns on the road.

During the past two years it had installed several safety measures including double lines and a U-turn ban sign. It has referred illegal driving behaviour to police.