By Renee Wood
The Melba Highway still remains closed following a fatal crash in Yering this morning which claimed the life of one driver.
Ambulance Victoria, CFA crews and Lilydale SES responded to the call just after 9.40am this morning to reports a car and truck had collided on the highway between St Hubert’s Road and Yering Primary School.
Lilydale SES Unit Controller Shaun Caulfield said upon arrival the driver and sole occupant of the vehicle was declared deceased by paramedics.
“It’s something that crews train for and know that we can potentially attend but it’s certainly not something any one particularly enjoys,” Mr Caulfield said.
A number of people stopped to assist before emergency crews arrived and traffic quickly banked up in the area.
“There was probably 30 or 40 cars banked up, it’s certainly not the busiest time but there were a lot of cars around.”
Ambulance Victoria spokesperson said the truck driver was taken to Maroondah Hospital with minor injuries in a stable condition.
SES and CFA remained on the scene for five hours as Victoria Police investigated the circumstances surrounding the crash.
“We assisted police by removing the deceased from the car, he was significantly trapped in the car so we remained on scene until that investigation was complete,” he said.
Both vehicles were found off the road and heavy haulage carriers were called in to remove the truck and empty semi trailer. The road is expected to be closed for some time as they work to remove the truck from a ditch.
Mr Caulfield said the Melba Highway is known for crashes, however, believes the reduction in speed has seen a drop in fatal crashes over the past several years.
“Unfortunately that section pretty much where this crash happened and towards Yarra Glen we do see a number of serious crashes in that area and Vicroads has lowered the speed limit to mitigate the risk in that area,” he said.
“Whilst we’ve attended a fatal today, there has been others that could have been fatal but they resulted in serious injuries.
“As much as people criticise the 80 kilometre speed change in that section, certainly the crashes we‘ve attended, if it was a 100 km zone the outcomes would have been a lot worse.”
“We’ve been to a number of crashes in those stretches and it makes perfect sense to reduce the 80 because of the history shows that it creates serious crashes.”
