There are growing calls for South Australia’s Dukes Highway to be duplicated between Tailem Bend and the Victorian border after a three-vehicle crash that killed a 19-year-old Keith woman last week.
Key points:
- Poppy Crozier, 19, was killed in a crash on the Dukes Highway last Friday
- Thousands of people have signed an online petition calling for safer country roads
- A family friend and the RAA want the Dukes Highway duplicated
An online petition calling for safer country roads started by another young Keith woman has garnered thousands of signatures.
A friend of the family is also calling for the road to be upgraded and the Royal Automobile Association of South Australia (RAA) wants funding for the project in the state budget.
Poppy Crozier died in the crash on the Dukes Highway at Ki Ki, between Tailem Bend and Keith, on Friday night.
An 18-year-old ute driver from Murray Bridge who was also involved in the crash was taken to hospital, while a 35-year-old truck driver from Adelaide was uninjured.
Neither of them has been charged over the crash, although police are seeking more dashcam footage of the 2002 Holden ute with the number plate GHEEUP-6 in the lead-up to the crash.
Megan Quick, 19, started a petition called “Grant safe country roads for SA” the day after the crash.
It had more than 4,600 signatures as of this morning.
Like Ms Crozier, Ms Quick grew up in the Keith area and regularly drives on the Dukes Highway, which connects Adelaide and Melbourne.
In calling for signatures to the petition, she wrote that it was “disgusting” the state government had ignored the dangerous condition of country roads.
“Hear me now. We don’t want safer roads. WE NEED THEM. Yesterday, that young Keith girl marked the 57th road death so far this year, whereas last year it was 30,” Ms Quick wrote.
“She was driving home from Adelaide, like she has many times before. It is cruel to family, friends, and loved ones to fear for the life of others due to a single road that has not been maintained and has been neglected.
“As a South Australian 19 year old, I refuse to take another loss of our community without putting up a fight for safer roads.
“It is simply not good enough that we are afraid for the lives of others while they are travelling. It’s time to make a change, before we lose more lives.”
A Department for Infrastructure and Transport spokesman said the state government contributed 20 per cent of the $500 million for the Freight Highway Upgrade Program in last year’s state budget, with the rest coming from the Commonwealth, that included upgrades to the Dukes, Stuart and Augusta highways.
He said resurfacing works were recently completed on the Dukes Highway at multiple locations between Coomandook and Bordertown and that 164 kilometres worth of black centre-line audio tactile line marking was added between Tailem Bend and the Victorian border earlier this year.
Family friend makes plea
As well as south east residents, the petition has been supported by friends and former schoolmates of Ms Crozier at the prestigious Wilderness School in Adelaide, where she boarded at until she graduated in 2021.
She was studying agricultural science at the University of Adelaide before her death.
Her parents Charlie and Asha Crozier, who are farmers near Keith, are too distraught to speak about their daughter’s death.
While emphasising he was not speaking on their behalf, a close family friend, Miles Hannemann, told ABC South East SA he was upset about the condition of the Dukes Highway, considering how much traffic it took, especially trucks.
“This is the modern times. It’s not old times. We need a dual-lane highway,” Mr Hannemann said.
“Once again the country misses out.
“You think of the money that’s being spent in Adelaide on expressways and all that sort of thing and you think [it’s] time to stand up and give us what we rightfully deserve.”
He said money to duplicate the highway should be in the state budget, which comes out on June 15.
“Absolutely, it should be right up the top. Let’s just do it and work out how to pay for it later. That’s the way it is,” he said.
“I’ve been driving this [road] all my life and it’s getting worse, the traffic.”
Duplication would prevent head-on collisions
The RAA called for $800 million for duplicating the Dukes, Augusta and Sturt highways last week.
The organisation’s senior manager of safety and infrastructure, Charles Mountain, said the Dukes Highway carried about 4,400 vehicles per day, including 2,000 commercial vehicles and 900 B-doubles.
“Moving towards full duplication gives you some critical benefits in terms of safety, because it means traffic has the option of always being able to safely overtake slower-moving traffic,” he said.
“It also means that you can provide physical separation between opposing traffic directions, which makes the corridor much, much safer and it means we wouldn’t see any more of those horrific head-on crashes that are unfortunately characteristic of this corridor.”
The Croziers’ family farm was badly burnt in a bushfire in 2018 that destroyed two homes.
Along with other farmers, they lost hundreds of sheep in the fire that was blamed on a faulty electric fence.