By Dongyun Kwon
Two accidents happened at the exact same location on Melba Highway near Yering Station on Thursday 19 September and Wednesday 25 September.
Both accidents were single-vehicle accidents, a jack-knifed truck and a rolled-over car.
Yarra Glen Sergeant Roger Willems said the jack-knifed truck accident was caused by the driver’s error.
“Melba Highway has got problems because of the nature of the road. The road gets flooded regularly, and then you get bitumen moves, bitumen causes potholes,” he said.
“[The truck] was a B Double. The bridge just before it does have a bit of a wave through it, so I don’t know whether that has anything to do with it at all, but that one I would suggest is driver error.
“The truck driver was checked for alcohol and drugs and that is pending at this stage.”
There were no injuries in both accidents.
Lilydale SES volunteers attended the second accident to assist Victoria Police.
Lilydale SES unit controller Shaun Caulfield said the majority of the crashes that occur on the corner are in result of vehicles heading from Yarra Glen towards Lilydale that end up going wide.
“Generally, without speaking about those specific accidents, the main cause there is people just going too fast into that corner,” he said.
“It’s not particularly super wide but it’s not overly narrow either.
“People seem to overestimate or underestimate how sharp that corner is, often tend to take a little bit too much fit in or end up a little bit too far to the left and [putting] their wheels in the dirt and then run wide in.”
In light of their own experience driving on that specific area, both Sgt Willems and Mr Caulfield found the corner easy to navigate.
The Lilydale SES unit controller said it’s complex to figure out why many vehicles run off from the road.
“We’ve been to quite a few crashes that are involving both cars and trucks, which literally just ran off the road and into the grass there,” Mr Caulfield said.
“In fact when the speed limit was 100 km per hour, we didn’t seem to have as many incidents there either, and the speed limit was dropped to 80 km per hour, and we’re still having incidents there, which suggests that speed limit is not the issue, it would just appear to be that for whatever reason, people might overestimate their speed at which they can go around that corner.
“There is a slight distraction, a narrowish bridge just before the corner, but it’s hard to tell whether that catches people, who are not experienced with the area, out. There’s nothing super obvious about the corner that makes it such a magnet for people to run off the outside of.”
Both encouraged drivers to follow the road conditions.
“I’ve driven it a lot of times and I’ve never come off the road. If you drive them at the speed as it’s suggested, you’re unlikely to come off the road,” Sgt Willems said.
Mr Caulfield said although there’s no obvious reason why cars keep running off the edge of the road, the accidents would be preventable if drivers pay attention to the speed advisory signs.
“Historically, we’ve had issues with two-car collisions near that intersection or near that corner, often caused by people coming out of Chateau Yering Hotel who are failing to give away,” he said.
“The highway inherently is no more dangerous in that section than any other piece of road but people need to pay attention to the speed advisory signs and the yellow signs that give a suggested speed that in ideal conditions.”
