By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
RESIDENTS say they have been pleading for speed humps on Nettle Drive, Hallam, for more than a year — the exact site of a head-on crash between a car and school bus last Wednesday.
On a chicane-like corner, a red sports car veered onto the wrong side of the road in the path of the bus about 3.50pm. Its crushed bonnet had “dipped” under the Emerson College school bus, Inspector Wayne Viney of Casey police said, adding that speed would be investigated as a possible factor.
An Ambulance Victoria spokeswoman said a CFA crew took an hour to cut the driver from the wreck. He had serious head and leg injuries and was flown to The Alfred hospital with life-threatening injuries. He remained in a “critical but stable” condition on Thursday morning.
A front passenger, with serious abdominal injuries, was taken by ambulance to The Alfred, also in a stable condition. A rear male passenger was treated at the scene for minor injuries.
Some of the 31 children on the bus were distressed; some had “superficial injuries” such as blood noses and cuts but were largely unhurt, Inspector Viney said.
The bus driver and a bus passenger were treated for shock at Dandenong Hospital.
Nearby residents, who milled around the scene, say they filled in surveys for Casey Council to install speed humps on the drive more than a year ago.
They say the measures are needed to calm the constant hoon traffic speeding on Nettle Drive’s winding corners.
There are no signs warning drivers to slow around the corner, or speed humps or other measures, such as guard rails to protect homes and families.
Lux Fakiki, who lives metres from where the crash happened, said it was about the fourth accident near the crash site in the past five months.
He said speeding cars were a constant danger, especially to the many children living nearby.
Last September the Journal spoke to several families living in Nettle Drive — a few hundred metres from the crash site — who have witnessed several cars sliding off the road onto their lawns in the past two years.
Casey Council’s transport manager Paul Hamilton said a local traffic management scheme for Nettle Drive was endorsed at a council meeting in January.
The $100,000 project for five ‘speed cushions’ in Fitzgerald Road and Nettle Drive would be referred to the council’s future capital works program and subject to funding availability.
“There is a high demand for traffic management devices across the municipality and there are significant costs associated with their implementation.”
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