Just got back from a few days in Hawaii (Oahu).
Drivers over there seem a much calmer bunch, didn’t really see any hoonish behaviour at all…. There were a few low speed red light runners, but that’s about it,
I also saw a few mainland registered vehicles (California mostly and one from Texas) which surprised me. I know it happens here with Tasmania, but Oahu is much smaller and further from the mainland USA.
I doubt they’re tourists. Probably either recent movers with a long enough time on their rego to not bother re-registering yet or they’re hire cars (often they are registered in a different state as it’s cheaper/less roadworthy laws, thus lots of QLD rego hire vehicles in Aus for instance).
On a similar note, I have seen a small number of foreign-registered cars on Australian roads over the years, including ones from the UK, Germany, and even the United Arab Emirates.
Apaprently horrible tipper truck and bus accident on the Princes Freeway in Melbourne’s western suburbs, Dee Dee on 3AW just spoke to Chris Miller from the VicRoads Traffic Management Centre’s media team (now known as the “Dept of Transport and Planning” - also providing official traffic reports to 3AW and ABC radio after they exited their long-time contract with the Australian Traffic Network - himself a former ATN reporter and has taken a number of other former ATN reporters in as well).
He says it’s then rolled, an enormous amount of sand across all 4-5 lanes and unknown on passengers involved. He said he’s watching people in stopped vehicles behind getting out of their cars and wandering around, obviously highly advising not to do so. Callers also ringing in confirming. Advising to get off at any upstream off ramp and the surrounding arterials and suburbs will now be carrying that traffic load, one of the busiest (part of the M1 corridor) and main link between Melbourne and Geelong. I’m guessing they’ll have to formally close and set-up diversions.
Will probably be making news soon.
update:
update 2:
update 3:
More images from VicRoads and Nine News chopper respectively:
update 4
Media release from VicRoads and another helicopter shot from Seven News:
All citybound lanes closed between the Princes Highway and Forsyth Road, due to a truck rollover. Exit the freeway as early as possible to detour through Werribee and Hoppers Crossing, or through Point Cook. Use Fortsyth Road, Palmers Road or Point Cook Road to return to the freeway.
No passengers aboard the bus (driver only) according to 3AW. Bus driver escaped uninjured. Truck driver and driver of a car that was hit both taken to hospital.
I wonder when Geelong will get to a size that there’s a need for a higher quality alternate route. From the city, Geelong Road gets you to Laverton, and then you can take a few major roads to get to Werribee - but then you either detour via Bacchus Marsh as suggested, which is a long way to go, and not a particularly good road, or you go by extremely low quality back roads.
It’s been a long while but I’ve done that back way via Little River before, it’s not fun, especially when there’s a lot of traffic on roads that don’t suit it.
Adding a shoulder, better signage and some barriers would do it - I don’t think you need a secondary dual carriageway, just something at a ‘highway’ standard.
Talking of ATN, I discovered this recently, iconic Melbourne traffic reporter Caroline Ferguson celebrated 25 years with the company late last year, congrats: 
However, she has since very recently departed and is now working for VicRoads’ in-house team, a few weeks back popping up on her old staple station and the same tiemslot 3AW during the afternoons (but Wednesday - Sunday now I think), having stopped appearing after many years in 2020 when Nine Radio parted ways with ATN. So a strange turn of events, but a romantic one for Ferg and long-time listeners 
It also marks the end of ATN’s original team, with her the last to finally leave, they only have a few reporters left in Melbourne now. Some other long-servers Vanessa O’Hanlon (went to ABC then Nine), Andrea McNamara (now at Go Traffic), Mike Carroll (unknown), Jimmy Wirtanen (now at VicRoads), Brad Arnoldt (now at VicRoads - does 3AW in AM used to do ABC’s in AM at ATN), Andrew Crook (now at VicRoads), Jeff Cooper (retired), Kathy Koutzas (FM radio elsewhere in Australia), Dean Pickering (focusing on his Victoria Police duties - also formerly Channel 7 Highway Patrol and FM radio) and Emma Notarfrancesco (working for F1 and Nine via Drive .com.au) all previously progressively went.
You raise some good points. One thing I would say is though the Princes Fwy (apart from its usual AM peak gridlock from Hoppers Crossing in and accidents or major road construction) rarely suffers from other congestion or incicents like most of Melbourne’s other freeways.
And beyond its urban limits, for 15-20+ years now has been minimum 3 lanes in each direction, with emergency lanes on both sides in each carriageway, with a wide centre median and wide left-hand grass/embankments, including plenty of barriers, line markings/features and monitoring equipment, which has all only expanded and got better as decades have gone on.
So many other major capital city - next largest town arterial links across Australia could only dream of being engineered/constructed like this and to this day some in parts still only have two lanes both ways, some in parts only 1, with no centre median, barriers, safety features or traffic monitoring, especially remote locations.
Sydney and Brisbane have the same issue with their satellite cities too… Out of Sydney, there is only main high quality road to the Central Coast to the north and Wollongong to the south… and to both the Gold and Sunshine Coasts from Brisbane…
With Geelong hosting several Commonwealth Games sports in 2026, there will be an urgent need for an alternate route in case of any accident on Princes Freeway. I think an obvious solution will be a new direct road linking Bulban Road to the intersection of Little River and Old Melbourne Roads, between Little River township and Princes Freeway interchange.
Interestingly the Queensland government has commenced a second motorway linking the Gold Coast and Brisbane, currently called the “Coomera Connector”. It is being built in stages but will eventually provide an alternative motorway to the M1 from Logan City to the Gold Coast. It will also link to the Logan Motoway.
They have also identified a route to the west of the current Bruce Highway to the Sunshine Coast. This will probably be more an arterial highway than a motorway though.
Another disaster within days, this doesn’t look good, although the third image suggests it’s more due to a jack-knifed B-double and it blocking access (rather than serious injury pile-up):
(first two photos: credit: " @ shitbmxrider" on social media, third photo VicRoads)
update 2
Lots of callers ringing into talkback radio on this and 3AW and DoT also on the line discussing it, it actually doesn’t sound too good at all, news services might even report on it soon… It’s apparently outbound Monash Freeway near that big EastLink junction with all the ramps.
Seven News chopper footage:
wait till you see the goat track to springfield - which is being set up a major satellite city - the lions training and AFLW ground is out there for example
This is the first major crash on Monash Freeway since it was expanded to five lanes each way.
Feel free to edit the first post when you’re just adding another element 
You mean the M5 extension? It’s now a duplicated motorway standard (4 lanes) to Springfield which I think is quite adequate for now. It will be a LONG time before any expansion of that is needed. Also worth noting the train runs there now. Sure it needs duplicating from Springfield to Ripley (as the A5) but you can see they’ve built it to be easily duplicated in the future. Springfield is also served by the Logan Motorway (M2) running east-west taking you to Ipswich or the M1 to the Gold Coast. In my opinion Springfield is actually exceptionally well connected by motorways. I really don’t see how anything is inadequate at all.
Goat track?
