Article: Bruce Highway most dangerous road in Australia

[Fares_Fair]

Article: Bruce Highway most dangerous road in Australia
Courier Mail mX
by Felicity Caldwell
January 19, 2012 4:11PM

Admin, please move to where appropriate.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/bruce-highway-most-dangerous-major-road-in-australia/story-e6freoof-1226248500930

ONE of the busiest commuter arteries into Brisbane - the Pacific Motorway - has made the list of the state's most dangerous.
The section between the Gateway and Logan motorways had the most crashes per kilometre of any section of national highway at 370, according to the report.

And the Bruce Highway has been named the most dangerous stretch of road, accounting for one in six deaths on the entire national road network, according to the RACQ's Australian Road Assessment Program report.

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The report comes as Queensland suffers through a horror start to the year's road toll, with 16 deaths so far - almost double the same time last year.

The report assessed the risk ratings of national highways, based on casualty crash statistics, between 2005 and 2009.

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The RACQ's Michael Roth said the section between the Gateway and Logan motorways carried 110,000 vehicles a day and needed an urgent upgrade, as traffic was only set to increase.

"They need to improve merging lanes and on and off-ramps and they need to increase the capacity of the road to four lanes each way to match the section south of the Logan Motorway," he said.

"It should be a priority because both Brisbane and the Gold Coast are continuing to grow in population - and we're only going to expect traffic levels to increase."

The report comes as police grappled with a horror night on the roads.

Seven people were injured in a head-on smash in the Nundah tunnel at 2am after a 16-year-old driver allegedly crossed on to the wrong side of the road.

And the state's 16th road toll victim for the year died when two cars collided at the intersection of Kingston and Paradise roads, Woodridge, about 11.45pm



Meanwhile, the Bruce Highway has been named the most dangerous stretch of road, accounting for one in six deaths on the entire national road network.

It also makes up two-thirds of the top 15 most dangerous sections of national highway in Queensland

The Australian Road Assessment Program report, by the Australian Automobile Association, scored it medium-high and high risk along much of its length.

Sections of the Pacific Motorway, and the Warrego, New England and Cunningham highways made up the remaining five most dangerous sections of the top 15.

The RACQ's Michael Roth said the Bruce Highway recorded the highest level of road trauma on Queensland's national network.

It tallied 50 per cent of crashes involving casualties and 61 per cent involving deaths between 2005 and 2009.

"Improvements such as more overtaking lanes, safer intersections, guard rails, audio tactile line markings, wider lanes and shoulders, and the removal of roadside objects would go a long way towards reducing the road toll," Mr Roth said.

Mr Roth said the federal government needed to spend an extra $1 billion over 10 years just on safety measures.

Queensland Main Roads Minister Craig Wallace said the state government had a plan with the federal government to upgrade the highway to four lanes from Gympie to Cairns.

"It identifies 110 priority projects including 340 kilometres of highway duplication, 50 new overtaking lanes, intersection upgrades, bridge replacements and 10 proposed ring roads, bypasses and deviations," he said.

But the opposition said the report had exposed state Labor's failings.

"This is an independent report, and coming on top of the series of bad smashes south of Rockhampton this week, surely confirms just how bad our main highway has become under Craig Wallace and the long-term Labor government," LNP Parliamentary Leader Jeff Seeney said.

The top 15 most dangerous sections of national highway in Queensland are:

Bruce Highway: Cooroy to Gympie, Gympie to Childers, Childers to Miriam Vale, Miriam Vale to Rockhampton, Sarina to Mackay, Mackay to Proserpine, Proserpine to Ayr, Townsville to Ingham, Ingham to Innisfail, Innisfail to Cairns.

New England/Cunningham Highway: Ipswich to Willowbank, Kalbar to Warwick.

Pacific Motorway: Gateway Motorway to Logan Motorway, Smith Street Freeway to NSW border.

Warrego Highway: Ipswich to Gatton.

[HappyTrainGuy]

Of course its going to be the most dangerous road. Its 1600km long haha.

[Jonno]

The Rail Back on Track annual "Road Lobby Group" Survey again found the RACQ is the leading group in its denial that their policies are creating the problem not fixing it.

[WTN]

Let's upgrade it to 12 lanes wide, autobahn grade, with provision for 40 lanes. The bigger the better. The NCL can be sold off to QRN to help pay for this. (only kidding).

I wonder what the lengths are of other highways. 1600km is very long, but what about others?

[#Metro]

BUSWAY!! With the 25 meter 300 pax chinese super bus! Don't ask me what to do with the freight!

[Mr X]

BUSWAY!! With the 25 meter 300 pax chinese high speed super maglev bus! Don't ask me what to do with the freight!

Fixed 

[Mr X]

Freight can be carried by 100m long road trains!! yeah 

[Stillwater]

Put in 50,000 extra people at Caloundra South, throw in a global financial crisis so they need to seek work in Brisbane or Cabulcha (lol) and watch the highway become a car park.  It already is around Kallangur most mornings.  If vehicles are travelling slowly, little chance of major injury.

[achiruel]

So what you're saying is we need to make the entire length of the Bruce Highway a very narrow but densely populated strip of land with no or little public transport so everyone is forced to drive their car, creating massive traffic congestion so average speeds can't exceed 40km/h?