Have you never seen the ads with the rhino? They can’t stop.
Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux utes are popular vehicles for tradies and farmers ,they actually need them though for their tools,equipment,etc.,and they can buy them cheaper as they’re purchasing them for their work.
These huge Yank Tanks don’t belong in cities,some streets in the inner city in all the capitals,Brisbane included,there’s just no room to park these vehicles ,streets are way too narrow 
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Melbourne’s Western Ring Road was brought to a car park for 4 hours and counting this afternoon, around 1pm a truck had a major spill of fish offal near the Pascoe Vale Rd bend. VicRoads were forced to close all but 1 (of 5+) lanes, sending upstream volumes into a disaster. I feel for all those stuck and can’t escape, especially those who aren’t usually on it ir only travel a very short distance and in the sun.
That section is notorious since the freeway’s inception 30 years ago and even after the major upgrade dating back 15 years ago, with that carriageway having no prior exit ramp for kilometres (first option is Sydney Rd and the next is the Tullamarine Fwy and Melrose Dr). Not helping that it’s gone into the Friday arvo peak. Depsite all the measures taken to advise drivers and mitigate the impact, it’s done little, with the north of the city gridlocked in all directions, also affecting the Hume Fwy. The main queue stretches about 15km from High St underpass in Lalor and on the Hume from O’Herns Rd/Harvest Home Rd.
I had a look an hour ago, using Google Maps Traffic data. The travel time (it’s usually relatively accurate - not as much as the density colours or VicRoads’ in-ground systems) from where the queue started approaching the Edgars Rd interchange to the incident site was an astonishing 2 hours and 20 minutes and if one was to travel the entire corridor from the Greensborough Hwy in Greensborough to the Princes Fwy junction in Altona it was nearly 3 hours. In fact, just one section under the Sydney Rd interchange (from the start of the off-ramp to the end of the on-ramp) was showing a horrifying 35min, just to travel about 500m? May as well have switched off the engine and had a picnic on the roof! I’d think many would’ve turned off their engines at times.
This resembled the annual West Gate Bridge works over Christmas/New Year, I think even worse, hard to believe.
Some online info and reactions below, probably details in news bulletins, 3AW (lots of callers and spoke to the DoT too - podcast will be uploaded) and Herald Sun also have an article:
https://twitter.com/VicTraffic/status/1771013000859943376?t=-YpvHKQ_KkcNEZ2WByr6xA&s=19
https://twitter.com/VicTraffic/status/1771000885293842733?t=-YpvHKQ_KkcNEZ2WByr6xA&s=19
https://twitter.com/JonathanBu44022/status/1771001934885113908?t=-YpvHKQ_KkcNEZ2WByr6xA&s=19
https://twitter.com/kiwi_matty/status/1771005123495616765?t=-YpvHKQ_KkcNEZ2WByr6xA&s=19
https://twitter.com/chucky_wolf/status/1771014580204142689?t=-YpvHKQ_KkcNEZ2WByr6xA&s=19
https://twitter.com/AlanBixter/status/1769561507954831686?t=-YpvHKQ_KkcNEZ2WByr6xA&s=19
https://twitter.com/3AW693/status/1771038415985004967?t=-YpvHKQ_KkcNEZ2WByr6xA&s=19
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Gosh that’s an offally bad accident.
And so is my pun.
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The traffic reporter in the helicopter said something exactly like this during 10 News tonight, Jen Keyte gave him nothing LOL
What about the previously mentioned oversized SUVs or Yank style pick up trucks that don’t fit in a normal size car parking space .If one of these vehicles is parked in a very narrow suburban street that is so narrow that there is barely enough space for 2 cars to pass in either direction.In many Brisbane suburbs, ones that are within 10 kms of the CBD ,there’s so many cars parked in the streets all the time because of the new apartment buildings that have been built in these suburbs, in the last 10-15 years,including around where I live.These apartment blocks usually have one car space per apartment and if there’s more than one tenant who has a car they only have street parking available to park their cars,I’m so thankful that my unit complex does have car parking for residents only so my car isn’t parked outside in the street.
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Even in my building, we have residents/tenants who park in public parking spaces on Level B1 where they shouldn’t be parking, even though there is a 3 hour time limit, which sadly doesn’t get enforced…
It isn’t fair to the rest of us who do the right thing and only park in our allocated spaces on B2 and B3.
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The Western Ring Road was shut down during this morning’s peak, following a multi-truck pile up at Sydney Rd (same stretch as last week too)… Just a few days after the previous shocker incident? What are the odds! Crazy freeway, government needs to get onto this, everyone is over it.
Delays were up to 1hr 20min, one driver says they were still stuck after 90min
https://twitter.com/Kareeming_1/status/1771994462048436403?t=G8SYdtbz8ZgJBpdk9QszJw&s=19
https://twitter.com/jsr_820/status/1772024911500108096?t=G8SYdtbz8ZgJBpdk9QszJw&s=19
https://twitter.com/chucky_wolf/status/1772025503668744615?t=G8SYdtbz8ZgJBpdk9QszJw&s=19
https://twitter.com/jpeterman1998/status/1772021007454285986?t=G8SYdtbz8ZgJBpdk9QszJw&s=19
https://twitter.com/VicTraffic/status/1772009507822157967?t=G8SYdtbz8ZgJBpdk9QszJw&s=19
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Not sure how you’d fix it? Banning trucks from the right hand lane would be a good start - appears to work well on the Monash.
Mind you, the recent changes to the merge between Sydney Road and the M31 seems to have caused more issued than it solved.
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There’s another big incident today (3 in less than 7 days), FFS.
Truck, van and car came together where the ramps from the Tullamarine Freeway meet with the Western Ring Road, just before the Pascoe bend (so technically in that same zone yet again!?)
But because of the specific location, it saw every major artery around that ‘Essendon freeway triangle’ become gridlocked. Queues banked back onto the Tulla all the way to Brunswick Rd; the Calder and the Ring Rd itsself stretched back to Furlong Rd. And then everyone’s GPS’ or traffic reports or signs were telling them to get off and go this way or that way and the entire north-eastern suburbs just become a mess.
Felgate on 3AW radio is talking about it again this afternoon and callers are ringing in angry. Plus a separate topic on Victoria’s pot hole epidemic. One caller suggested when freeways are being upgraded, do it standard in both directions and make it 4-5 lanes, not 4 or 5 then land drops to 3 or 4, which causes the bottlenecks and dangerous conditions. The WRR is still 100km/h too, unlike the Tulla (80 btw Bell St and West Gate); M1 corridor (80 btw WRR now all the way to High St on the Monash) and I think Eastern as well with the North-East tunnel project.
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This device, designed to fit over a Volkswagen’s front badge, emits a warning signal to kangaroo species as vehicles approach. The signal, inaudible to humans, blends natural and artificial sounds in real time before projecting at high-frequency from the front of the vehicle.
The RooBadge, the first of its kind to be scientifically developed and proven, has now been granted permission for stage four trials – involving kangaroos in the wild – by The University of Melbourne Office of Research Ethics and Integrity.
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After VicRoads first issued standard car rego plates all starting with a 1 eg. 1AA-1AA way back in 2013, the 1Z series is coming to an end and they are now starting to issue plates starting with a 2!
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VicRoads still made us stick the rego sticker on our windscreen until about a decade ago! So ancient.
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On another topic:
When are they going to update all the road signage?
As in we’ve still largely got the late 90s/early 2000s (with the old green and black VicRoads logo) gigantic rollout of the then new and Australian-first alphanumeric class system. There’d be tens if not hundreds of thousands of these old signs across the state’s arterials and yet they’ve been at least two upgrades. First around 2010/2011 (when the VicRoads logo changed and also made some tweaks to some designs and made some names more succinct such as the Ring Rd). And again about 6 years ago, overhauling the sign style to be more in-line with Nsw and other states (from a darker green to a lighter green and thick white borders to a spaced white line including some more general design tweaks and phrasing changes).
The old ‘National Highway’ (e.g.) AusLink program shields also still exist on so many signs, pretty much all rural and a lot of urban as well. Despite ending around 2009 and the original legislation changed after 2005 anyway. You can still see the “National M80” darker green shield with a less brighter yellow text on most on-ramps to the Western Ring Road, as well as mainline sections at the southern-most end and approaches on the Hume Fwy, Calder Fwy and Western Fwy. And you can still see the “National M8”, “National M31”, “National M39” and “National A20” shields along the entire lengths of the Western Fwy, Hume Fwy, Goulburn Valley Fwy and Sturt Hwy, respectively.
And don’t even get me started on the freeway Help Phones and signs, many of which are still from the 1990s with the original VicRoads logo with the extra graphic and the corded 80s style cream phones in a metal blue handle box on a pole (you can see this along the Frankston and Mornington Peninsula Freeways as well as the Western Fwy, Hume Fwy and sections of the Calder, Princes and Goulburn Vly Fwys. Eastern Fwy used to have them, but were decommissioned in 2015 and the other urban freeways either upgraded to the more modern 2000s> ones or have been switched off (unlike the Eastern to save money they’re still there but with the signs boarded up and a note) and replaced with newer “hazards call 13 11 70” (the Traffic Management Centre number). CityLink and Peninsula Link’s still operate. EastLink’s have been switched off, but are still there, boarded up and replaced with a control room number like the VicRoads metro freeways.
I believe Help Phones are now only standard policy on rural freeways, where there is no monitoring (CCTV/traffic sensors and automated incident alarms/incident response/control signs) and mobile phone coverage may be limited in spots and for remote area safety (if somebody needs help, are trapped on a freeway with trucks flying by either side at 110km/h and don’t know who to call).
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It’s not just about getting lost. Trusting Google maps can be dangerous as in many instances it directs you off high quality A highways onto B and C back roads because they’re 2km shorter. It’s a big problem and has caused accidents.
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Agree, i tend to stick to the main roads because they are generally better quality surfaces, less bumpy etc.
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Victoria made that change at exactly the same time as NSW.
If there’s anywhere that needs to replace their road signage, it’s the ACT - it all seems to be melting. Otherwise, when the data is still correct on the sign, and there’s not a need like ensuring reflectivity, then replacing functional signs is a huge waste of money.
Often you do see signs where the route number is covered up, when it is wrong or outdated, but just being stylistically wrong isn’t worth a change.
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The signs are designed to have a decent useful life and are pretty well only ever replaced when they get damaged, lose reflectivity or there is a change to the content of the sign (like a new road, or change in focal point). Changes to route markers may force a complete sign renewal if there are other issues with the sign (like physical condition), but often they’re just coverplated.
Changes in standards around signage mean that there is a lot that when they get replaced will also need changes to poles/gantries etc, this can often mean that what is a simple job can turn into quite a significant amount of work (and cost).
No road authority is going to do bulk sign replacement to remove a word from a route shield.
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