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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-12-05 Daily Xml
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Regional Roads

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (15:37): I rise today to speak about the state of rural roads. We were all heartbroken to read about the needless deaths of teenage sweethearts Mikayla Eastwood and Hayden Perkins last month in a head-on crash, tragically with one of their schoolteachers on a dangerous stretch of Long Valley Road near Strathalbyn. They had just finished their school year—bright young lives yet to fulfil their rich potential, lost in an instant, leaving their school community and the Hills district grief stricken.

Then, this week, popular Playford Primary School principal, Dean Clark, died when his car hit a tree on another perilous stretch, the Alexandrina Road, near Strathalbyn, only 15 kilometres from where Mikayla and Hayden died. It prompted another plaintive cry from Alexandrina Council mayor, Keith Parkes, for the government to upgrade these deathtrap roads, which are busy thoroughfares to Fleurieu Peninsula. He said, and I quote, 'We've been asking for years, writing to the government about Long Valley Road and Alexandrina Road.'

Many of our rural roads are rotten killers, in dire need of upgrades. Here is a gruesome statistic to consider: of the 616 road deaths since 2013, 355 have been on rural roads and 261 in Greater Adelaide. This year alone, 72 per cent of the 73 fatalities so far have been on country roads. The response to Mr Parkes and others, like the RAA and the Civil Contractors Federation, who have highlighted this crisis has been typical of a new government that has its fiscal focus firmly on the city, with stadium hotels, tram turns—albeit now scrapped—and a billion dollar-plus Women's and Children's Hospital: deafening silence and a lack of commitment.

Closer to Adelaide, the state of roads is inexcusable. Frustrated constituents Nick and Rosalie Villios contacted me about a section of Main Road between Black Road and Cherry Gardens Road at Chandlers Hill that snakes past their place and those of neighbours Colin Routley, Laz Mezaros, Nick Tumicz and Roger and Kerrie Sexton. They have been complaining for 17 years—that is right, 17 years. People have died on that road in that time. They have written to countless MPs, including their new local member for Davenport, Steve Murray, only to get a disinterested brush-off. When they tell you that it is so dangerous that Australia Post refuses to deliver their mail, you would think it is grave enough to investigate.

Three weeks ago, the day after that storm, I went there. The first ominous warning was painted in big yellow letters on the crumbling, buckling, potholed bitumen. It said, 'fix this road'. The term 'road' really flatters this treacherous corridor—or should I say 'horridor'?—that is part of the main Adelaide to Goolwa scenic route. We took our lives in our own hands when walking it with the two Nicks, Colin and Laz.

The winding, narrow road is falling to bits. It curves around a steep gully where there is no discernible railing, just a disintegrating old wire fence. Guard railing installed a few years ago on the other steep corner has reduced the width of the road so that vehicles have to take the sharp turn over the centre line. An old, large, rotting gum tree at the base hangs menacingly over it. Stormwater drains, long buried by debris, have sharp-edged concrete caps protruding that have caused tyre blowouts. An old timber cross roadside memorial acts as a sober and sombre reminder.

Nearby, a tree wrapped with the remnants of emergency services tape bears the scar of a recent fatality. A well-worn path used by kangaroos adds to the frightening unseen hazards at night and may have been the cause. There is no street lighting and reflector posts are in such poor condition that I found one lying at the bottom of that perilous gully. Veering to miss cars and trucks and being forced to travel on the wrong side of the road is a constant. No government in their right mind should accept this.

Elsewhere, the busy Mount Compass to Victor Harbor Road has death written on its many hellish curves. Those so-called highways in the Riverland, Mid North, Upper Spencer Gulf and Eyre Peninsula need urgent upgrades to cope with super-sized freight traffic. As the government tries to rush through its piecemeal Road Traffic Act amendment to revive the use of handheld speed guns and the revenue that comes with them, here is a thought: why not redirect some of the tens of millions of dollars raised to fixing the state's appalling $1 billion of maintenance backlog and making blackspots like Long Valley, Alexandrina and Main Road safer, as proposed by the Civil Contractors Federation chief, Phil Sutherland?

Let's hope that one of the first priorities of the new Infrastructure SA, which SA-Best supported, is roads, which in turn will save lives.

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