Community & Business
14 October, 2023
Driver going 147km/h on ‘dangerous’ Manthey Road
“THAT just proves you can’t take away people’s stupidity,” Cr Bernie Wilce said about speeding drivers and the proposed closure of the “dangerous” Manthey Road intersection at the recent Tablelands Regional Council Meeting.
He was referring to one driver on travelling at a speed of 147km/h and that there was also a driver going at a speed of 117 on Isabella St East, “which is a bit scary”.
The intersection is used to access the Tolga Industrial Estate from the Kennedy Highway.
Cr Wilce was speaking in support of Cr Peter Hodge who had amended his motion for the 28 September TRC ordinary meeting to request the Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR) gather more data on the intersection.
When speaking to his changed motion earlier in the meeting, Cr Hodge also mentioned the driver doing 147km/h and said “that intersection is dangerous”.
“So what I am doing here is trying to do our due diligence to say ‘look Main Roads, this intersection is dangerous’,” Cr Hodge said.
“I’ve changed the resolution … and what it does, it puts the onus back on TMR … they have to do this due diligence. And this, as far as I’m concerned, this council has done the right thing in asking them to do that work, so that’s the main gist of it.”
The new Manthey Road Closure Motion is “that, in addition to the Council resolution of the last meeting, the Chief Executive Officer write to the Department of Transport and Main Roads requesting a safety audit of the Manthey Road, Kennedy Highway Intersection to determine whether additional safety works, including signage and or intersection upgrades are required.”
Deputy Mayor, Cr Kevin Cardew, questioned the new motion, asking “What’s that going to do?”
“Wouldn’t we be better off asking them to close it as opposed to doing all these audits and the like.
“They’re not going to do anything other than a sign posting. They won’t put a new intersection in because there’s one 50 metres down the road.”
Cr Hodge answered Cr Cardew’s questions and said after talking to TMR recently he was told they “go on data” so we “need to do the data on it – so that’s why I changed the resolution”.
Cr Hodge said in hindsight council should never have allowed the road that comes onto Manthey Rd.
“Isabella East should never have been allowed to come onto Manthey Rd … but it has happened … and it has become very dangerous … with the rates of speeding”.
Vehicles exiting Manthey Road back on to the highway, have to do so with only a slim sightline of traffic coming through the Tolga Scrub, going up to 80km/h. As noted in this meeting, however, some drivers are travelling far in excess of the 80km/h speed limit.
Cr Wilce said there was little data available to support the fact that the intersection itself is dangerous.
Many locals took to The Express Facebook post about the intersection, commenting that “closing roads is not the solution” and just “a quick fix”. Several readers suggested a roundabout or stop lights would be a far better alternative.
In some data collected by TRC it was found that 815 vehicles use the road per day on an average weekday and less than 1% are semitrailers.
Cr Hodge’s new motion was seconded by Cr Wilce and carried unanimously.
