A DIVIDED dual carriage-way to the Victorian border – that’s top of the Christmas wish list for the NRMA in a new Princes Highway safety audit.
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An NRMA review compared the data from the past five years, assessing 428km of the highway from Dapto to the Victorian border.
The review tells a tale of two roads, with almost 300 km of the Highway south of Jervis Bay Road – including several stretches in the Eurobodalla - classed as high risk.
NRMA’s South Coast director Alan Evans and roads engineer Mark Wolstenholme will settle for 300km of three lanes and rope safety barriers.
In Batemans Bay yesterday, the pair said those interim measures would lower the “high-risk” of travelling on 15 stretches of the highway.
The stretches from Batemans Bay to Burrill Lake, the “mad mile” from Batemans Bay to Mogo and from Bodalla to north Narooma were identified in the audit as among the worst sections.
However, they said inexpensive rope barriers could quickly lower the risk to motorists.
“We are still seeing deaths and injury crashes at an unacceptable rate,” Mr Evans said.
“In the interim, there are steps we can take, including widening the highway to three lanes and alternating in each direction so there are opportunities to pass.
“Wire rope barriers are an inexpensive means of attacking some of the more high-risk areas.
“We know they work.
“They absorb the vehicle’s mass, they don’t throw it back on the highway and your chances of being killed or injured are reduced markedly.”
Mr Wolstenholme, a co-author of the audit, said he had recent proof that wire barriers saved lives.
“I saw the highway at its worst when it was bucketing rain for three days,” he said.
“When we drove to the border, everything was okay, but when we drove back 24 hours later, we saw two locations where the wire rope had been hit.
“There were no fatalities or serious injuries reported.
“People had hit the wire rope and driven off, so lives were saved.”
Mr Evans said the jury was no longer out on safer roads.
“The report shows when you build safer roads you get this quite amazing statistic: a reduction in injury crashes of 90 per cent,” he said.
“There is 300km of road we regard as high risk, from Nowra to the border.
“There are a couple of spots which are getting some attention, Dignam’s Creek for example, but we still major problems.
“Given is the backbone, the life blood of the South Coast, we have to ensure it is not only a useful road, but a safe road.”
