New Lara truck route stirs child fatality fear

Andrew Mathieson
LARA residents have slammed a council truck route as dangerous and noisy.
City Hall’s latest solution to heavy vehicles motoring down popular residential roads was a detour onto two of Lara’s main roads.
Trucks are using Lara as a shortcut from Bacchus Marsh Road onto the Princes Highway.
Households along Forrest Road North and Station Lake Road say the trucks have put lives at risk once residents step out their doors.
Forrest Road’s Ken Campbell said pedestrians had to walk just metres from passing trucks.
“There’s no sidewalk whatsoever at the Hovell’s Creek bridge, so you have to walk on the road,” he said.
“Lara is a very family-orientated town and there are a lot of kids cycling along there and walking their dogs.”
A council survey recorded almost 50 extra trucks, mostly semi-trailers, travelling the new route daily.
Mr Campbell demanded council either spent more money on roads infrastructure or directed traffic onto Lara’s bypass connection.
“The six-ways roundabout is way too busy – it has no crossing or traffic lights. There’s also no pedestrian footpath on both sides of the Station Lake Road bridge.
“The route goes right past a kids’ play park and a skateboard park.”
Maria Wade, who lives near the roundabout, called the truck route a “disaster waiting to happen”.
Mrs Wade, who said she had witnessed a child killed under the wheels of a semi-trailer, feared it would happen again.
“To try crossing at the roundabout is ridiculous,” she said.
Smaller milk trucks were previously banned on the same roads because they were too noisy, Mrs Wade said.