Image: Martin Valigursky/stock.adobe.com.
The Royal Automobile Club of Queensland (RACQ) named Queensland’s Bruce Highway as the most despised road in the state in their 2024 Unroadworthy Roads Survey.
According to the Club, drivers travelling along a stretch of the highway between towns Childers and GinGin are nearly 10 times more likely to be involved in a serious crash than if they were travelling on another highway, such as the Hume.
On ABC News Radio, Queensland Trucking Association CEO Gary Mahon sat down to discuss this survey result, the significance of the Bruce Highway and its dangers for truck drivers and other motorists alike.
Mahon firstly emphasised the Highway’s importance as a connector for Queensland.
“It’s basically the vital link from the top to the bottom of the state, it runs from Brisbane through to Cairns, around 1,670km,” said Mahon.
“It links all the coastal cities and towns, and is a vital link to the east and west corridors as well.”
Following this, Mahon outlined the Bruce Highway’s many dangers that drivers face, from tight road stretches to poor visibility, and even the Highway’s major susceptibility to flooding.
“There’s just hundreds and hundreds of kilometres where the shoulders are no more than one metre,” he said.
“Visibility is low—there’s fog, sometimes smoke, and particularly by intersections. Then, you move into a lack of overtaking lanes, pavement width, narrow bridges. There’s quite a lot of improvements that need to be made.”
Mahon’s final comments discussed the issue of the Highway’s funding. Contribution disagreements between the Federal and Queensland government are resulting in a lack of total funding being given to the Highway.
“The Federal Government has stepped back from the funding principle of 80/20,” said Mahon.
“They’re now quite steadfast that it’s 50/50, which puts quite an imposition on the state. When it’s the nation’s number one national highway, and they’ve multi-laned every other highway in the state, we’re saying it’s time Queensland got its turn.”
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