By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
THE grieving family of a Dandenong High School student who was killed at an accident danger area is campaigning for a speed reduction.
Thirteen-year-old Shaye Kosky was hit while she crossed the Princes Highway near the James Street intersection after school on 6 March 2013, a short distance from the school’s front entrance.
Shaye’s grieving mother Stacey Brown and sister Jacinta last week posted a campaign on the Change.org social petition website to reduce the area’s 80 kilometres per hour speed limit.
Shaye’s grieving mother Stacey Brown and sister Jacinta last week posted a campaign on the Change.org social petition website.
It is titled ’To reduce the speed limit on Princes Highway to prevent the loss of another innocent soul’.
The pair are also calling for a 40km/h limit during school drop-off and pick-up times – as is the case outside most schools – and barriers to prevent jaywalking.
Had she been crossing James Street or the highway’s service lanes, the speed limit would have been 40km/h.
At a pedestrian footbridge 100 metres east, the highway’s speed limit drops from 80km/h to 60km/h.
“Had the speed limit been 40, Shaye might not have lost her life,” Ms Brown said last week.
Within a few days, nearly 450 people had signed the petition, many leaving personal tributes to their popular friend.
Ms Brown acknowledges Shaye did “the wrong thing” opting not to cross at the nearby pedestrian lights, but she’s shocked to see groups of students regularly doing the same.
“I couldn’t believe it when I first saw it,” she said.
“They think it’s not going to happen to them.”
As can be imagined, it’s been a tough year for Ms Brown and Jacinta.
Ms Brown says the three of them had been “such a tight unit” as she gazes at a photo board of smiling faces of Shaye in a multitude of settings with a variety of friends.
There’s now a deep “emptiness”.
Ms Brown has questioned the fairness of it all and her belief in God which has been shaken by the taking of the kind-hearted teen.
“A lot of the students are affected.
“She was the social butterfly – she was a lot of students’ best friend.
“She just accepted anyone for who they were.”
Last year, at the behest of now-mayor Jim Memeti, Greater Dandenong Council met with VicRoads to discuss the issue.
The council asked the roads authority to extend the 60km/h zone up to the James Street intersection – now a black spot marked by a tree memorial of flowers and angels which are tended by some of Shaye’s friends.
“It’s been to no avail so far,” Cr Memeti said.
“The council – which knows the wishes of the community – has been asking for it to happen.
“The question we should ask is why aren’t VicRoads doing it?”
VicRoads metropolitan south-east acting regional director Frank De Santis said the crossing was eligible to be included within the school speed zone after a revision of speed zoning guidelines in November.
“It will be considered for future funding in the context of state-wide priorities.
“Students at the school are currently able to safely cross the Princes Highway at a dedicated pedestrian overpass or at a signalised crossing at the intersection of Princes Highway and James Street.”
VicRoads statistics show there had been 20 ‘casualty accidents’ near the intersection in the five years up to 30 June 2012.
Eight of those incidents were ‘high-severity’ but no fatalities.
A few hundred metres away, a 30-year-old father was killed when his car was struck by an allegedly drag-racing car travelling up to 110 km/h in a 60km/h zone in 2011.
He was pulling out from Henty Street onto the highway.
Access the petition here:
Dandenong High School speed limit
