Northern Victoria Region road safety
Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (18:34): (1734) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action that I seek is for the minister to instruct the Department of Transport and Planning (DTP) to remove hazardous tree branches on roads in northern Victoria and improve the VicRoads online hazard reporting form to make it suitable for regional roads. Two constituents have recently alerted me to a lack of vegetation management by the Department of Transport and Planning along regional Victorian roads. One constituent contacted me to say that the C338, Bendigo-Tennyson Road, through the Whipstick forest north of Bendigo has dead trees hanging over and collapsing on the road, creating a serious safety hazard. Another constituent got in touch to warn me that along the stretch of the Midland Highway between the C355, the Murchison turnoff and Elmore, there are about a dozen large gum trees with dead branches that overhang the highway. These pose a serious risk as they may break and fall at any moment, especially during high winds, which could have catastrophic consequences if a branch were to hit a car travelling at speed or force a driver to swerve. My constituent tried to report this hazard on the VicRoads website, but the online form requires you to put in a street address and town in order to submit a report. These requirements are simply not appropriate for reporting hazards on long stretches of country road. The minister must improve the VicRoads online hazard reporting form to make it suitable for regional roads and instruct DTP to urgently cut back dead branches that overhang the Midland Highway.