By Jessica Micallef
A Romsey resident wants speed humps and chicanes introduced on Macedon Ranges roads to protect wildlife.
Patrick Francis has urged the state government to look at installing such obstacles in a bid to slow down drivers on roads with high levels of wildlife.
Mr Francis was responding to Cherokee resident John Power’s calls to introduce dual speed zones.
In May, Mr Power told Star Weekly he wanted dusk-to-dawn dual speed zones in areas of high wildlife activity.
Mr Francis said VicRoads’ response to Mr Power – that it had no plans to introduce speed limits – highlighted the failure of the state government to take responsibility for public and wildlife safety.
“To suggest wildlife crossing signs placed along minor rural roads which have a 100km/h speed limit will encourage drivers to slow down ignores research on the subject,” he
said.
“Research in Australia and overseas demonstrates that the only effective way to slow drivers down in the vicinity of wildlife outside restricted speed zones is to erect structures on roads such as speed humps and chicanes.”
Mr Francis said speed limits were not effective. “You can’t police them,” he said. “There’s not enough police and it’s not something that I would ask the government to do … what if we put speed humps on some of the critical roads that are overused now because of the excess population?
“There has got to be a compromise somewhere along the line. How can these little gravel roads with habitat right to the edge of the road be 100km/h?
“There are three key issues – the speed, the habitat on the road and the fact we haven’t really changed our attitudes to what is a reasonable speed on some of these gravel roads in the shire.”
