The tyres tell the story. Strips of rubber litter the Kings Highway. Repairs of repairs of repairs result in a grey and black quilt in the parts of the road.
The 135km of road from the outskirts of Queanbeyan to Bateman’s Bay occasionally offers the motorist the sudden choice between dodging an ankle deep pothole or breaking a double yellow line.
Queanbeyan police highway patrol cars chew up tyres in a little over half the time than their colleagues at Bateman’s Bay who cruise the Princes Highway and the better part of the Kings below the Clyde.
Police don’t blame road conditions for accidents. If people drive for the conditions, including the road conditions, then accidents will be rare, they say. The NRMA takes a slightly different view. It blames some accidents directly on road conditions. A survey of roads out of Canberra it published last month put the crash rate on the Kings at 30 per cent higher than the other three highways: the Monaro (despite the winter grand slaloms), the Federal (despite the Lake George horror) and the Barton. So the Kings Highway is comparatively a grim reaper.
Driving conditions are made more life-threatening by the nature of the traffic: four-wheel-drives towing yachting dreams and station-wagons towing caravaning nightmares; trailers with projecting odds and sods for coast houses; gravel trucks and horse floats; and surfing hoons in lowered shagging vans doing death-defying overtakings on double yellow lines.
But it is not all bad news. This holiday season, drivers have not been as manic as in past years.
At Bateman’s Bay, Senior Sergeant Steve Marsh said yesterday that the new speed limits on the Clyde and the road widening there, especially near Pooh Corner, had helped keep the crash toll down. Drivers were behaving themselves better this year. Tickets were down about 30 per cent. The Safe Arrival operation (which ended in NSW on Saturday but continues on the coast till January 31) was a great success.
In 1991 seven people were killed in the Bateman’s Bay area, four of them Canberrans. Last year it was two, none Canberrans.
The points system was helping control holiday traffic, too, especially as it was becoming reciprocal around Australia. People could no longer commit driving offences interstate and not lose licence points.
At Bungendore, Senior Constable Philip McCloskey said resignedly, “”The Kings Highway is the Kings Highway. It’s always been like that, but at least people are starting to drive to the conditions.
The NRMA condemns the highway. It says overtaking is restricted on 64 per cent of it; 122 curves required advisory signs; less than 15 per cent of it had extra lanes. In 1989-90, there were 289 crashes.
Three political jurisdictions have been passing the buck over the road. NSW says it should be a Federal road and because so many Canberrans use it, the ACT Government should contribute. The ACT Minister for Urban Services, Terry Connolly, says no government funds roads outside its jurisdiction. Brisbane people used the Pacific Highway in NSW, but Brisbane City Council was not called upon to fund it. Besides, Canberra coast visitors paid NSW petrol taxes and contributed to the NSW economy.
The Federal Government has offered an extra $3 for the road if NSW matches it. NSW refuses, saying it has already allocated $3 million this year.
The ACT general manager, Neil Burnside, says NSW should accept the offer.
The South-East Economic Development Council puts the $3 million in perspective by saying the road needs $165 million. Given NRMA and ACT Road Safety Trust figures, there is a good argument to support this type of money.
Trust figures show each accident costs about $15,000. The NRMA’s figure of 30 per cent higher crash rates on the Kings Highway suggests that about 90 accidents a year could be saved just bringing it to Barton, Monaro or Federal Highway standard. That is a $13.5 million a year saving, not counting the human misery nor the cost of wear and tear of tyres, suspension and car bodies, evidence of which litters the side of the road.
The $13.5 million a year would be almost enough to finance $165 million in works. The jobs spin-off would also be helpful in recouping the difference. But economics doesn’t work like that: the benefits are too dissipated to attract political attention.
At Braidwood, they are prepared for whatever the highway dishes up.
John Radburn, the proprietor of the Ampol station, has replacement tyres and a mechanical workshop. He used the highway virtually every day for nine years until he returned to the station seven months ago.
“”The road is in a better state than its ever been,” he said. “”Though that’s not saying much.”
He is more concerned about the 10c difference in wholesale petrol prices between Braidwood and Marulan (a tankful away).
“”They come in here and blame me,” he said.
Next door, Barry Hall, an Advanced Life Support ambulance officer, makes sure he and his ambulance are ready. Too date, he says, it has been a good holiday season and he hopes it can stay that way.