By Mikayla van Loon
The combination of a dirt road and speed has already seen one tragedy happen along this Avonsleigh road.
And residents on Phillip Road are fed up with the dangerous driving and excessive speed limit which is just an accident waiting to happen.
Dale, Matt and Jackie have each witnessed cars risking their own lives and others as they take blind corners too fast, hoon and push oncoming cars into the nature strip.
When Dale moved into his house two years ago he assumed the entire road was 60km, with one section being 50km.
“It’s a skinny dirt road, which I assumed was maximum 60km because to go any more than 60, you’re really endangering people’s lives and there’s many spots along the road where you’ve got to actually pull over and let the other guy through to get past,” he said.
Dale was bewildered to learn the road was actually 100km and although a local back road, he has since learnt it is used as a shortcut.
“It’s a big hooning element and there’s also the other element, normal people in a hurry or tradies or delivery vans and this sort of stuff that you use Phillip Road as a back shortcut between the Woori road and the Emerald road.”
Jackie has lived on Phillip Road for 23 years and while she said the dangerous driving has always been an issue, it seems to have increased, with more people taking unnecessary risks.
“It’s probably gotten worse over the years. More so in the last five or so years because it’s become a bit of a thoroughfare or an easy way for people to get from one side to the other or use it as a bit of a drag strip,” she said.
While most of the time Phillip Road is just used by residents, Jackie said after 5pm as people head home from work, it turns to chaos.
“I’ve had times coming home from work at maybe five o’clock at night and there’s been three of them following each other one after the other going fast and speeding around the corners and it’s a nightmare.”
For Matt, even though his house is removed from the most dangerous section of road, he said pulling out of his own driveway is a challenge.
“[The cars] just go so fast and it makes it dangerous for us to pull out onto the road. You’ve always got to be so vigilant about who’s roaring down,” he said.
As a father to a young child, Matt is also concerned about the worst case scenario should his son get out onto the road and a car is unable to stop.
“So when he’s up and about running around, we’re terrified if he ever ventures down to the road, that’s going to be a major concern of ours,” Matt said.
“When he’s on his bike or charging around, he might venture out to the road, and when they’re going that fast, they’re just not going to be able to stop in time.”
Dale has similar fears for his grandchildren when they are allowed to visit again after restrictions ease but also for pedestrians and horse riders who use the road.
“I saw a woman the other day with a newborn baby stumbling along the dirt road and she was trying to negotiate her way down to the local shop,” he said.
Had he known Phillip Road was such a race track for hoon drivers, Dale said he would have never bought his house two years ago.
Nonetheless, he has tried everything possible to get the speed limit changed by going to Cardinia Council and the Department of Transport but has been ignored at every turn.
Ranges Ward councillor Jeff Springfield said this issue had been communicated to him a number of times and the council has explored all options by going to the DoT and Cardinia highway patrol.
The council’s traffic management officers stated the VicRoads State Speed Zoning Guidelines (SSZG) were being followed in this area and an “End 50” sign denoted the difference between a built up area and a non-built up area.
“While the default speed limit in the eastern section of Phillip Road is 100km/h, this does not mean it is safe to travel at this speed, with the speed limit merely being the maximum permissible legal speed,” the statement said.
Cr Springfield said there are a number of roads in the shire that have the ‘default rural zoning’ speed limit attached to them.
“In my personal opinion I don’t believe the current SSZG provides enough flexibility for the local government to administer a more appropriate approach when assessing the individual needs and circumstances of our local road network,” he said.
Sergeant Fiona Tolmie from Emerald police station said the issue was raised with the police and Highway Patrol units will be tasked with actively monitoring the road.
After seeing the tragedy unfold in 2015 which claimed the lives of three teenagers, neither Jackie or Matt can understand how the entirety of Phillip Road, bar the 50km section where the accident happened, can still be 100km.
“If it was limited to say 50 I think it would act as a deterrent but at the moment, there’s just nothing deterring them from driving as fast as they like,” Matt said.
“Whereas I think if we had a limit and then we could police it somehow, I think that would be the best way to put a stop to the bad driving or the dangerous driving.”
“It’s completely the wrong speed because there’s so many corners, there’s lots of trees and you can’t see around any of them at all,” Jackie said.
“My family would like to see the speed reduced and potentially have it blocked off at some point, to create two no through roads so that it’s not that thoroughfare as well.”
Matt, Dale and Jackie each said it’s just a matter of time before another fatality happens or a major collision occurs and they just hope it doesn’t involve any of them.
“Until something really serious happens, that’s probably when obviously they’ll have to do something but it’s just ridiculous.”
