S-Bend rollover prompts more calls for road to be straightened

Around 7:30am Saturday morning a vehicle roll over occurred at the s-bend on the Brand Hwy in Greenough, south of Geraldton. We haven’t received any reports of serious injury, though Ambulance and Police were called to the scene. The cause of the accident has not been released by Police.

The accident comes three months after Troy Buswell, then the Minister for Transport, provided a document to state parliament outlining answers to questions regarding road safety and improvements. In the document, the project to straighten the substandard S-Bend and Bookarra curves was estimated to cost $20m and marked as high priority for the 2014/15 investment pipeline.

But a document from 2009 on the Main Roads website shows that way back then this road was known by Main Roads to be substandard, and needing to be "altered to improve intersection safety and amenity to tourist traffic”.

Community members who contacted Everything Geraldton to alert the community to the incident, also called the road to be straightened soon.

Let’s hope nothing worse happens before the road gets fixed.

UPDATE:

The occupants of the vehicle were trapped before being freed by Department of Fire & Emergency Services.

Two occupants, the male driver and 15 year old male passenger were taken to Geraldton Regional Hospital for a check-up suffering with minor lacerations.

Inquiries are continuing by Mid West Gascoyne Traffic Police.