Truckies blockade `deadly' highway: [2 All-round First Edition]
Michelle Gilchrist, John Stapleton. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 31 Mar 2004: 2.
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Abstract
MOST road deaths on the Pacific Highway in NSW result from head- on collisions, with almost half of the major link between Sydney and Brisbane still to be upgraded to a four-lane dual carriageway despite a 10-year, $2.2 billion investment program.
MOST road deaths on the Pacific Highway in NSW result from head- on collisions, with almost half of the major link between Sydney and Brisbane still to be upgraded to a four-lane dual carriageway despite a 10-year, $2.2 billion investment program.
The findings by a NSW government inquiry into the Pacific Highway add new urgency to calls to improve the road within a decade.
The highway was at flashpoint last night, with truck drivers in a blockade at Macksville on the northcoast, protesting against the condition of the highway.
"We have to stop the carnage of workplace accidents in our industry," said Australian Long Distance Owners and Drivers Association chief executive Jerry Brown-Sarre.
Last year 56 people were killed in 44 accidents between Hexham, north of Sydney, and Queensland.
Some of the highway's worst blackspots will be divided by wire barriers to reduce head-on collisions under a $14million program announced yesterday by theNSW Government.
The money will be spent between Grafton and Byron Bay, where most of the highway remains a two-lane road.
A spokesman for NSW Transport Minister Carl Scully said the projects to divide two-lane sections of the road were an urgent measure, prompted by the first findings of the study by new RTA safety general manager Professor Soames Job.
But the $14 million is only a fraction of the $4 billion needed to make all the highway a four-lane dual highway.
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