Highway hell: RFS volunteers deal with crashes on Mitchell Highway blackspots
Published Date: 16 Sep 2015
Summary
THEY signed up as volunteer firefighters but over the last year the Lucknow and Summer Hill Creek Rural Fire Service (RFS) brigade has rushed to scores of serious and fatal crashes on the Mitchell Highway east of Orange.
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By Janice Harris
The area between Orange and Macquarie Woods is fast becoming a black spot area with the RFS responding along with other emergency services to one serious or fatal crash every month.
ACCIDENT WATCH: Lucknow and Summer Hill Creek Rural Fire Service captain Michael Bloomfield and his wife Barbara are regularly called to crashes on the Mitchell Highway between Orange and Macquarie Woods. Photo: STEVE GOSCH
Lucknow and Summer Hill Creek brigade captain and veteran RFS volunteer Michael Bloomfield says it is not the condition of the Mitchell Highway that is contributing to the jump in accidents but driver behaviour.
He has carefully documented data from the crashes.
“I’m sure it’s fatigue that is playing a big role - people are close to Orange and fall asleep at the wheel,” he said.
“And to add to it of the last four out of 10 accidents we’ve attended four people weren’t wearing seatbelts, making their situation much worse.”
More than three decades ago Mr Bloomfield signed up as a Rural Fire Service volunteer but he and his colleagues have found themselves fighting fewer and fewer fires.
“In the last 12 months we’ve had a couple of small fires, but the rest of the calls are to car accidents,” he said.
“Whichever way we look at it though, what we do is still about helping people and we want to help people no matter what the circumstances.”
Mr Bloomfield said the fallout from volunteers attending so many tragic road accidents was taking its toll.
“In the last 10 years we have lost three really good volunteers who have quit because of the MVAs [motor vehicle accidents] we are attending,” he said.
Mr Bloomfield is convinced an improved road, modern vehicles equipped with cruise control and people feeling in their comfort zone is having a big impact on driver concentration on the stretch of highway that is now becoming notorious for emergency services workers.
“With many of the injuries we see it would be much worse if vehicles weren’t equipped with air bags as many are,” Mr Bloomfield said.
He said a worrying trend creeping into road crashes in the area was drivers under the influence of drugs.
“With all these crashes it’s hard to know what authorities can do to get the message across,” Mr Bloomfield said.
He says he hopes the public will heed the road safety warning to take plenty of breaks and drive to conditions.
“All we can do is hope the message gets across so lives can be saved,” he said.
