AN elderly Moruya man has died in a horror accident on the Princes Highway near Bendalong, the first of two serious accidents on our roads this week.
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The accident occurred just before midday on Monday, when the 74-year-old man and his 61-year-old female passenger were travelling north at about 60km/h.
As their Subaru station wagon took a moderate left-hand bend, it drifted into oncoming traffic and side-swiped a southbound tipper truck before it hit a stationary, unoccupied tipper trailer parked on the side of the road.
The car spun sideways and came to rest in the middle of the road.
The driver and passenger were trapped for about an hour before being freed by rescue workers, while the highway was blocked for four hours.
The man was airlifted to Wollongong Hospital with serious head injuries and died at about 2.30pm.
The woman was taken to Shoalhaven Hospital then Wollongong Hospital with a badly broken arm.
The driver of the tipper truck, a 44-year-old man, was uninjured but was treated for shock.
The Lake Illawarra Crash Investigation Unit continues to investigate the accident. A report will be prepared for the coroner.
Police late yesterday had not released the man's name to the media.
The second accident occurred at about midday yesterday, when a rigid tipper truck overturned across both southbound lanes of the Kings Highway roundabout on the Princes Highway. The front container spilled its load of up to 13 tonnes of gravel, while the dog trailer remained upright.
The driver was quickly released and taken to Batemans Bay Hospital with minor back injuries.
Clean-up of the spill was not so easy, however. A bulldozer arrived at about 2pm to start clearing the gravel, while south-bound traffic was diverted onto Peninsula Drive and through Surfside.
RTA staff directed traffic all directions from 3pm for an hour as a tow-truck removed the vehicle.