By Tom Cowie
They creep up on you, sometimes not revealing themselves until it’s too late – particularly at night. Then comes a heavy crunch, followed by the hiss of air and thudding of a soon-to-be-flat tyre.
Greg Johnson drives the Melba Highway between Yea and Glenburn, north-east of Melbourne, several times a week from his place in Goughs Bay. He doesn’t think the potholes have ever been as bad as they are at the moment.
Greg Johnson’s car has been badly damaged by potholes on the Melba Highway.Credit: SImon Schluter
“They’re absolutely shocking,” he said.
“When you’re driving at night, the cars veer off trying to miss them. We’ve had a trailer in front of us that bounced in the air.”
Johnson said he recently had to fork out more than $2000 to replace all four tyres on his Porsche Macan after hitting one of the many cracks in the bitumen that have opened up in recent months.
“There’s signs out saying ‘reduce speed limit’ or ‘rough surface’ but they’re all over the road. Sometimes it’s rather hard to not hit one,” he said. “And they’re not small.”
It may not be as sexy as major transport infrastructure projects such as the Suburban Rail Loop or the East West Link, but nothing fires up drivers quite like an unfilled pothole.
This year, heavy rain has left Victoria’s roads in a particularly bad shape ahead of the usual springtime maintenance season.
Crews have been unable to do major repair work until the weather clears. Meanwhile, water on the roads only makes the potholes bigger and deeper.
“When we get periods of extended, above-average rainfall, like we’re experiencing now, it’s not unusual to see more potholes on our roads,” said the Transport Department’s chief of regional transport Paul Northey.
“We need to wait for warmer, drier weather to be able to deliver long-term repairs that will last – delivering this type of work when it’s wet or cold drastically increases the risk of the works failing.”
For those who regularly use the Melba Highway, which has a speed limit of up to 100km/h but is often being slowed to 40km/h, the road surface has become worryingly unsafe.
Golding’s view.Credit: Matt Golding
Former Mansfield Shire mayor Paul Volkering said it was only a matter of time until a pothole caused a fatal accident.
The stretch of the Melba Highway near Glenburn has already proved deadly. In August, 30-year-old Georgia McDonald was killed when her car collided with another vehicle. The precise circumstances have not been made public yet. Her partner was preparing to propose within days of the crash, according to a family GoFundMe page.
As well as the high rainfall, Volkering said the road had suffered due to heavy traffic to the nearby snowfields during winter.
“You can’t drive more than a couple of k’s on that road without coming across a big pothole,” he said.
“It’s just becoming a real nightmare,” he said.
“It’s OK if you’re an experienced country driver, you know where to slow down, but it’s just deteriorated to the point that it’s unexpectedly dangerous.”
An unfilled pothole on the Melba Highway.Credit: Simon Schluter
The nearby tyre fitters have also reported a big surge in business because of potholes on the Melba Highway and other high-speed roads, including the Hume Highway.
Zoe Lee, manager at Seymour Tyrepower, said there was a recent three-week period when dozens of cars were limping in consistently on spare tyres or immobile on the back of tow trucks.
“I haven’t seen anything like it,” she said. “They were coming off the highway like there was no tomorrow.”
The damage all seemed to be consistent with cars hitting a pothole at speed, she said.
“The tyre gets an impact fracture,” she said. “It’s like a growing egg on the side wall of the tyre. Once that happens they need to be replaced.”
Liberal MP for Eildon Cindy McLeish recently raised the issue of the poor condition of the Melba Highway in state parliament.
“I drive that road myself very regularly; it has to be one of the worst in the state,” she said.
The Transport Department said that $4.3 million was set aside for resurfacing the Melba Highway in the next financial year.
More broadly, the state government has allocated more than $780 million to repair 1600 kilometres of state arterial road surfaces this year.
Earlier this week, the state opposition promised to spend $10 billion on road maintenance in the next 10 years if elected.
Drivers on the Melba Highway are hoping repairs happen sooner rather than later.
Lindsay Hocking, from Yea, said a pothole near Glenburn had recently ripped a hole in one of his Ford XR6’s tyres, while another bent the exhaust system.
“It was just a sudden ‘bang’ and then in a minute it went ‘thud thud thud’,” he said.
“One morning I was driving down, eight cars were pulled over on the side of the road with jacks out.”
The danger wasn’t just in hitting a pothole, he said, but when drivers weave across the road to try and miss them.
“I was swerving that many potholes the other day, I had about 10 cars behind me and it was like a big snake,” he said.
“If it’s in the dark, you don’t see them until you’re on top of them.”
The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.