Two die in Kings Highway crash

Oops, forgot to close off my URL tag, if a friendly admin type could tidy that up for me I would be thankful.

Just posted on the ABC news site:

…Federal Member for Eden-Monaro Mike Kelly says Labor’s election pledge to spend $23 million on the Kings Highway between Queanbeyan and Bungendore, should see work start within a few months.

“That will add a further five overtaking lanes in that initiative so that should also ease the general stress that’s incurred on driving that route which should improve hopefully the situation along the entire route,” he said…

At least it appears as something will get done.

Without knowing the specifics of this incident, and not intending to cause any offence to the families involved, no road is ever going to be good enough if drivers are unable to maintain their concentration.

The speed kills line is a dishonest and convenient furphy. Sure speeding, especially excessive, should be frowned upon, but it would be nice if other aspects of poor driver behaviour received the attention that speeding does.

Anyone who has driven in Europe would know that consideration for others on the road is generally at the forefront of drivers’ minds.

Here? Most struggle to know when turn their lights on be it a foggy day or even dusk.

People have no patience on the Kings Highway. Waiting for the nesxt overtaking lane could add precious minutes to the trip time. Most drivers seem these seconds are worth risking your life for.

The difficult thing to understand is that accident happened on a very short double lined stretch between two passing lanes, east and west bound, both well signposted.

interesting to find out how the crash occurred

I suspect that both vehicles attempted to simultaneously operate within the same horizontal plane of the space-time continuum.

the lack of apparent damage is amazing

Indeed, and any old-fart who still attests that old cars are safer because they’re made of ‘real metal and stuff’ should be shown a picture of this crash.

Like others I also suspect that the driver of the Rav 4 died as a result of something other than crash trauma. The drivers section of the Rav 4 looked relatively intact.

Having said that, a piece of metal coming through the firewall or originating from the dashboard, and occluding something like the femoral vein, would be life threatening if not treated quickly.

Given the remoteness of the accident scene, a person could die before help arrived in the aforementioned situation.

Not saying about this accident but I have seen others where people were knocked unconcious with their head forward which kills them. Ignore the neck injuries and get the head back so they can at least breath. Unconcious, head foward then get a body bag.

It’s be interesting to find out how the crash occurred.

Totally agree Nyssa, my mother, myself and my sister were almost killed by some jackasses on this same highway.

The sad thing is Ingee, they won’t give a rat’s…

One person dying on that road is one person too many.

Those idiots who think they can drive at 200km/ph and overtake 5-6 cars on a whim should be knee capped and have their licences taken away.

A sad day for all involved and their families.

It should give pause for thought to all those who travel that road.

There was certainly an enormous ammount of energy required to cause the damage to the Holden. If it was absorbed by the 4wd, the lack of apparent damage is amazing. The crumple design must have worked as intended – brilliantly.
Pity humans arn’t built the same way.

The issue is not how damaged a car is after the accident, it’s how much energy, and rapidly this energy, is transferred to the occupants of the vehicle. Modern cars are much safer than older ones, and this accident is sad indeed.

Maybe it was hit side on so it doesn’t appear to bad but those side impacts are the worst by far.

In any collision, no matter how minor, the driver of the Rav4 will always die. Chuck Norris said so, and it became the 11th Commandment.

Vic, this adds to my puzzlement. The driver’s section of the 4wd appeared undamaged.
Perhaps the result of medical rather than accident trauma?

Driver of the Rav4 died, passenger of the HQ died.

Yeah doesn’t really matter how good the cars are when they come together at 200kmh there isn’t much hope. These things happen sad as it is human error is always going to be a factor when driving cars at any speed when we evolved to operate at about 6kmh walking speed.

WIN has covered this accident in some detail.

An apparently benign curve in the road, and yet a disasterous coming together by an HQ/HZ Holden with (I think) a Subaru Forrester.

The left hand front quarter of the Holden was destroyed, apparently causing fatal injuries to the passenger.

Puzzling that the passenger of the Subaru was apparently also fatally injured, given what appeared to be less than major damage, the probable presence of air bags, and the driver aparently inflicted with minor injuries.

The powers that be have done a sterling job in raising the crashworthiness of modern motor vehicles, and fatal results such as this are to be wept at. May the investigating Police add additional information to the pool of knowledge so this type of result is reduced even further.

My thoughts are with the victim’s families.