By Jackson Russell
Concerns about speeding on a particular Broadford street have increased after a car crashed into a tree in a resident’s front yard earlier this month.
Reservoir Road in Broadford is the link between a growing housing estate and the main township, running into the residential areas of Govett and First streets.
Mitchell Shire Councillor Bob Humm said council testing noted a significant portion of cars travelling on Reservoir Road were speeding.
“In November last year, we had the strips out there. There were 371 cars on average per day and out of those, 85 per cent were doing an average of 59.8km/h in a 50km/h zone,” he said.
While speeding is a concern for the residential street, Broadford police Sergeant Warren Taylor said speed wasn’t an issue with the recent crash.
“This particular accident, we can’t say speed was a factor. It was the environmental conditions combined with driver error,” he said.
“With the angle of the road, the gradient and the camber, people need to be a little more careful coming from that estate, especially in the morning in winter when the roads are getting icy.
“There’s a reasonable down gradient coming towards First Street and all those factors combined mean drivers need to take a little bit more care.”
Sgt Taylor said the driver of the vehicle swerved to miss a dead kangaroo on the road, over corrected and hit the slick grass surface before crashing into tree.
“At that time in the morning, the grass was like ice and she struck a tree. The airbags went off which broke her glasses and cut her face so she was taken to hospital for lacerations,” he said.
Sgt Taylor said he had spoken with residents about their concerns.
“We spoke with residents that were openly concerned that this has been something that’s been waiting to happen because people are often going too fast and putting themselves a higher risk of a collision,” he said.
“I plan to talk to council around signage but we haven’t had any specific complaints about speeders that we’ve been able to put into play but after this, we’ll be keeping a closer eye on the area.”
Cr Humm said council would have to consider traffic calming measures in the future.
“At some stage we’ll have to think about what traffic calming devices we’ll have to put in there with all the growth,” he said.
“Reservoir Road is obviously going to come under more pressure with how that’s developed. We’re looking at how we can improve that whole area of Broadford on the eastern side of the tracks.”
