12:00a.m. 6th September 2008

| By Bill Hoffman

Trucks were among the traffic caught in the hold-up following the fatal accident north of Pomona yesterday. Photo: Brett Wortman/178115

The stretch of Bruce Highway where four people died on Thursday will have just $200 million spent on it for upgrades and maintenance between now and 2014.

If fatal accidents continue to occur at the rate they have during the past eight years, another 36 people may die by then with only limited progress made on dual-laning of a 40-kilometre stretch of road rated as the most deadly in Queensland by Royal Automobile Club of Queensland.

It has claimed 50 lives since the year 2000.

Designed to carry only 8000 to 10,000 vehicles per day the highway is now experiencing traffic volumes double those numbers.

Traffic was backed up to Eumundi by 12.40am yesterday when police were finally able to clear the debris from the three semi-trailers and one passenger vehicle involved in Thursday’s lunchtime horror smash.

RACQ estimates that $4 billion needs to be spent on dual-laning of the national highway between Cooroy and Curra.

A spokesman for Queensland main roads minister Warren Pitt said the sheer size of the project was daunting.

He said the minister wanted to negotiate with his federal counterpart, Anthony Albanese, to break the project down into manageable pieces.

The minister will speak with Mr Albanese next week about how best to utilise the $200 million now in the federal budget for the road.

“The minister wants a discussion on when the work would start, not when it would be finished,’’ the spokesman said.

“The job is only ever going to be done in stages.’’

One of those may well be a $500 million section near Traveston, which the state government will fund if the controversial Mary River dam is approved.

The dam will require a shift of the highway making it a cost to the project and a Queensland government responsibility.

'Improve roads, less people will die'

RACQ spokesman Jim Kershaw said there had been crackdowns on driver behaviour and cars were being vastly improved for safety.

“What we are saying is that you can’t leave roads out of the equation. Improve the roads and less people will die,’’ he said.

Member for Wide Bay Warren Truss said federal minister for infrastructure, transport, regional development and local government Anthony Albanese, in a written response last week to a question on notice, had said the new federal government’s commitment was only $200 million to 2014.

Mr Truss said while the former federal coalition’s funding commitment of $700 million was also not enough to complete the Cooroy-to-Curra stretch, it would have kept the project on target for a 2020 completion.

The Queensland government dismissed that claim, Mr Pitt’s spokesman saying the $700 million had “only ever had the status of an election promise”.

“It was never in the budget and never in the Auslink program,’’ the spokesman said.

Federal pressure needed: Simpson

LNP transport spokeswoman Fiona Simpson has demanded premier Anna Bligh up the pressure on the federal government to commit more money to the road.

Ms Simpson said Ms Bligh had to fight harder to save Queensland lives.

“No one wants to see any more lives tragically lost on this road when we know the problem can be fixed,” she said.

Investigation launched

Mr Pitt said inspectors had launched an investigation into the accident, which saw Caloundra truck driver Mark Hamilton, the seven-month pregnant woman driver of the sedan and her passenger die.

Mr Pitt said road design, the wet weather at the time of the smash and visibility would all be considered.

“If Main Roads investigations establish that any road factors were involved, it will act to address these,” he said.

A police investigation would also look at the road condition as well as driver behaviour.

Main Roads has investigated a total of 16 crashes on the stretch of road where the deaths occurred, and had determined that all were a consequence of driver behaviour.

$4 billion needed

Mr Kershaw said neither party was promising anywhere near the $4 billion the motoring organisation estimated would be needed to deliver a high standard dual carriage way between Cooroy and Gympie.

“This road is poorly rated in every respect,’’ Mr Kershaw said.

“The crash statistics are frightening. We want these killer roads fixed. Even a small increase in funding to lift its quality slightly would save lives.’’

Mr Kershaw said there had been decades of under-funding for roads by successive governments.

“There has been $22 billion earmarked nationally for roads, we estimate that $23 billion is needed in Queensland alone.’’