Police warned transport chiefs about dangerous Strathmerton intersection

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Police sounded the alarm about a notoriously dangerous stretch of road in the state’s north more than a year before five people were killed in April when their four-wheel-drive was pushed into the path of a truck.

Both the Department of Transport and the Moira Shire Council were told signage at the intersection of Labuan Road and Murray Valley Highway in Strathmerton was inadequate and given a list of recommended improvements following a site visit in February 2022.

The Strathmerton intersection a day after a horrific crash that killed five people.Credit: Nine News

Police undertook a fatal collision audit of the intersection after a van failed to give way at the site and smashed into an unmarked police car.

The crash, which seriously injured two officers and killed the driver of the van, was the third collision to take place at the intersection since December 2021, and came amid a series of near-misses in the vicinity.

The fatal collision report compiled by crash investigators, which included a site evaluation with representatives of Regional Roads Victoria, found signage at the site was inadequate and made recommendations to improve the safety of the intersection.

These included installing larger stop signs to replace existing give way signs, painting separation lanes on the roadway approaching the highway on Labuan Road and dropping the speed limit near the intersection to 80km/h.

The report also suggested removing a bump on the road caused by an old railway line embankment on Labuan Road that reduced visibility at the intersection.

The Department of Transport made some improvements to signage and installed rumble strips at the crossroads following the audit but did not act on the remaining recommendations put forward by police.

The department has since agreed to drop the speed limit to 80km/h and is considering other measures to increase the visibility of the intersection, but it is yet to commit to adopting all the audit recommendations in full.

“We are working with council and Victoria Police to improve safety on the Murray Valley Highway,” a department spokeswoman said.

“Planning work on several improvements, including options recommended by police, is underway, and we will continue to work with our road safety partners to improve our road network.”

The shire has committed to flattening the bump and is in conversations with Google Maps to remove Labuan Road as the default travel route to the area. However, any upgrades affecting the Murray Valley Highway will fall under the umbrella of the state government.

“The Murray Valley Highway is the main east-west transport route for the shire and safety is the key focus of a broad range of work being done,” shire acting chief executive Joshua Lewis said.

Lewis said the council was planning to meet its counterparts at the Wodonga, Indigo and Towong councils to devise a plan to improve the highway east of Echuca, which they would put to Roads and Road Safety Minister Melissa Horne for consideration.

Melbourne traffic engineer Robert Morgan said an examination of crashes at the site suggested something was seriously wrong with the intersection, as it appeared drivers kept missing give way signs.

“In my experience, this type of occurrence usually means there is a problem with the intersection, rather than a problem with the drivers,” he said.

Morgan said lower speed limits and replacing give way signs with stop signs were “feel-good” measures that were designed to minimise the consequences of crashes, but failed to tackle the root cause of the collisions.

“There are these problems all over the state, and so it does need a specific program and no one is interested in doing it,” he said. “What happens is we sort of patch it up after the event and forget about it.”

Morgan said many fixes to regional roads – such as replacing signs that no longer comply with current size or use guidelines, and painting lane markings and islands at dangerous spots – were inexpensive and went a long way towards reducing crashes.

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