Speedway scare

By Kath Gannaway
RESIDENTS of Newgrove Road in Healesville are calling for a stop to speedway drivers they say have them on a knife-edge night after night.
The latest call for action came from Kim Stewart after her daughter’s Holden Astra was smashed up when a speeding driver lost control of his car and spun out before being in collision with the parked car on Thursday night.
Leading Senior Constable John Saddington of Yarra Ranges Traffic Management Unit, who was patrolling in Healesville on Thursday as part of a six week blitz, said the driver, a 24-year-old Healesville man, had admitted to speeding and would be issued with penalty notices for speeding and careless driving.
However, Mrs Stewart said it is her daughter, who is overseas, who will be penalised.
“She asked us to sell the car because she needs the money. We had just found a buyer for the car today and now it is a wreck,” she said.
Mrs Stewart said the driver was not insured and she was still checking to see whether her daughter had current insurance.
“You could hear it coming up from Stevens (Road) or around from Crowley (Road) and the next thing there was a huge, horrific bang.
“I heard the squeals as it was coming around the corner,” Mrs Stewart said.
The impact of the crash pushed the car into their car-port posts which are below road level.
Had the car not been there, Mrs Stewart said the driver could easily have crashed into a lamp-post just metres away.
“We’re all sick to death of these people using this road as a speedway,” said Mrs Stewart who has the support of neighbours in calling for speed humps to be installed to slow drivers down.
Neighbours Michele Fawdon and Judi Cowley said they heard the car coming.
“I just thought ‘Oh God, it’s going fast’, then heard the crash,” said Ms Cowley, a teacher at Healesville High School.
“It’s a huge problem and it happens a lot at night. I won’t walk the dog after dark, it’s just too dangerous.
“If your partner is home late from work, we all worry that they’ll meet one of them coming around the road,” she said.
There is a real fear that with many of the houses situated below the road level it’s only a matter of time before there is a fatality.
The problem is not restricted to young ‘hoon’ drivers. Ms Fawdon said mothers driving their children to school also drive too fast.
“It’s only a month or two ago that a car driven by a mother and with three children on board went off the road and destroyed the fence of one of these houses. It ended upside down on the roof of the property owner’s car.”
While residents say they have been told by the shire that installing speed humps would cost too much, they say they are determined to get something done before someone is killed.
Leading Sen Const Saddington said while the driver had admitted to speeding, there was no evidence which would support action under the hoon legislation.
“Part of the issue here is that you have a section of road with a series of bends where any car travelling even at the speed limit appears to be going too fast,” he said.
“I have the same complaint about a number of roads throughout Healesville and on Thursday night was working on a road where people had complained about speeds of 140 kilometres an hour.”
He said the six week blitz, now in its fourth week, had resulted in 71 speeding offences including four loss of licences, 27 unregistered vehicles, seven disqualified or suspended drivers, four unlicensed drivers, four drivers exceeding .05 and 25 miscellaneous offences. He said people should endeavour to get the registration numbers, description and time and date of drivers who are continually breaking the law.
“If we have that information on a continual offender I will act on it,” he said.