By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Serious car crashes have happened all too often outside the corner front yard of Noble Park resident Brian Fernando.
But this time the collision came too close for comfort.
Two cars crashed, crumbling down Mr Fernando’s perimeter brick wall on the evening of Monday 21 January.
His yard is on the corner of what is becoming a notorious black-spot, at the intersection of Athol Road and Noble Street.
According to Ambulance Victoria, a man in his 70s and two primary-school aged children were hospitalised after the crash.
The man suffered chest injuries and was taken in a stable condition to Dandenong Hospital.
A boy was taken to Royal Childrens Hospital with bruises and lacerations, and a girl was in a stable condition with a head injury.
Mr Fernando is calling for speed humps to curb a spate of crashes and “drag racing” along the Athol Road straight.
Many nearby roads have traffic-calming humps, he noted.
“It’s the people that are walking here and living here that I worry about.
“Speed is the cause of these accidents.”
He called for speed humps in the Star Journal late 2017, while bemoaning the recent installation of traffic lights.
“The thing is the traffic lights are not going to stop the accidents,” he said at the time.
“Speed humps, they would have stopped the accidents.”
Prior to the traffic lights’ installation in 2017, there had been three casualty crashes at the intersection in five years.
Two of them involved cars exiting or entering Noble Street and failing to give way to through traffic on Athol Road.
One was a pedestrian, struck while crossing Athol Road.
This recent crash was the first since the lights came in, Greater Dandenong engineering director Julie Reid said.
She said the council will consider further works to improve safety.
“Road safety treatments are always allocated to the locations where the greatest road safety risk is identified.”
Council officers would obtain details on the recent crash from Victoria Police, and monitor traffic conditions in the area, Ms Reid said.
